LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
Shelf .cCfcjfZ, 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



35j> tfre late Dean ®raj>. 



THE CRUSADE OF THE CHILDREN IN THE Xlllth 
CENTURY. With Illustration and Appendix. i2mo, 

$1.50. 

HUSBAND AND WIFE. With an Introduction by the Rt. 
Rev. F. D. Huntington. Revised Edition. i6mo, giit 
top, $1.00. 

THE CHURCH'S CERTAIN FAITH. The Baldwin Lec- 
tures, University of Michigan. i2mo, $1.50. 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY, 

Boston and New York. 



J&aittmn Hectares, 1889 



THE 



CHURCH'S CERTAIN FAITH 



BY 



GEORGE ZABRISKIE GRAY 

LATE DEAN OF THE EPISCOPAL THEOLOGICAL 
SCHOOL, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

<£i)t CtarsiD? }9nrgs, tfamfcnOoe 

1890 



c^? 



-^IV 



^ v 



Copyright, 1890, 
Br KATE FORREST GRAY. 

All rights reserved. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
Electrotyped and Printed by II. O. Houghton & Company. 



NOTE. 



In the publication of these Lectures but few 
words seem necessary beyond my husband's In- 
troductory Letter. 

When he wrote this letter, his illness was 
much more serious than he imagined, and he 
was suffering from a failure of sight, from which 
he never sufficiently recovered to be able to re- 
vise any of the Lectures. Nevertheless, until 
within three weeks of his death, he confidently 
hoped to regain such health and sight as would 
enable him to prepare them for the press. As 
now printed, a few changes of form and occa- 
sional verbal corrections have been made, but in 
other respects the Lectures stand as my hus- 
band left them. 

The fragmentary form of the first Lecture is 
due to the fact that it was never finished, as is 
indicated in his letter to the Rector of the Ho- 
bart Guild. Kate Forrest Gray. 

Cambridge, Easter, 1890. 



INTRODUCTORY LETTER 

TO THE RECTOR OF THE HOBART GUILD. 

Cambridge, April 22, 1889. 
My dear Doctor, — It is one of the great disap- 
pointments of my life, that owing to illness I cannot 
deliver these Lectures, the preparation of which has 
been a labor of love ; for although I did not expect 
they would be equal to the occasion, I fully realized 
the opportunity for good which that occasion affords. 
But their delivery by me being entirely out of the 
question, as I both know and am told by physicians, 
I send them as you request, that they may be read 
by yourself, or one whom you appoint. Yet, even in 
so doing, there is the further distress to me", that I 
have not been able to revise the work of the type- 
writer, for I feel that there must be many things of 
greater or less importance which I must leave to your 
correction, especially in the first Lecture, which has 
not even received the amount of labor bestowed upon 
the others, and where I rely upon you, not only to 
correct, but also to condense, as your judgment and 
taste will indicate. I know of nothing of moment to 
change as to matter, but I am aware that there are 
many things in which criticism will call for change as 
to form. During the summer I hope to be able to 
put the Lectures into such shape for printing as may 
render them a little worthier of their predecessors. 
Please state, by way of introduction, that the 



Vi INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 

brief period allowed for preparation, as well as my 
imperfect health this last winter, shut me up to a 
popular rather than an erudite course, which, how- 
ever, seemed to me, perhaps, to be the means of 
reaching an audience, whom more elaborate dis- 
courses might not help as well, or which, if they 
would, are so amply provided. As to the subjects 
chosen, — The Nature of Christianity, the Reality of 
Jesus, His Deity, His Church, Theology, and the 
Bible, — they were selected because they cover the 
ground of the great religious discussions of the day, 
and because, about all of them, divergences in the re- 
ligious world are more radical than is generally real- 
ized, in spite of frequent apparent agreements. My 
method of treatment, beyond the popularity of form, 
has been to try to show how these matters are looked 
at in consistency with the spirit of our own Church, 
as it is represented by those who seek to rise above 
parties 'and shibboleths, and realize the fullness of 
her message and the width of her embrace. 

In other words, I have tried to present what I have 
so largely learned from Bishop Harris, for I in- 
tended in my Introduction to speak of him as under- 
standing, as fully as any one I have ever known, the 
words " I believe in the Holy Catholic Church," and 
the Lectures were written with a feeling that they 
were to be delivered under the sense of the loss of 
the 

" touch of a vanish'd hand, 

And the sound of a voice that is still," 

and to constitute an humble contribution towards 
continuing the influence of his magnificent life. 

I have prepared in the rough an Introductory 



INTRODUCTORY LETTER. Vll 

Lecture upon various preliminary matters, especially 
the nature of true Christian Belief, as resting not 
upon mere authority, nor the result of argument, but 
being "the belief of conviction, based upon personal 
perception of truth. I had hoped to show how, by 
emphasizing this element, or by "manifestation of 
the truth, commending ourselves to every man's con- 
science in the sight of God," is what is needed in 
dealing with the alleged prevalent unbelief of the 
day, in which there is perhaps less unwillingness to 
believe than desire to believe rightly, and less rejec- 
tion of the Catholic faith than misapprehension as to 
what it is. 

Let me add, furthermore, that the limitations im- 
posed by the time at my disposal, and by the field in 
view, have not only led me to say many things which 
will be trite to many hearers, but have also led me to 
omit many things which, under other circumstances, 
would have been called for. Critical listeners will 
notice not a few significant silences ; and I desire to 
say that inference as to my personal opinions drawn 
from such silences, will be extremely precarious ; for 
the object of the Lectures is to show the distinction 
between what the Churchman is committed to, or 
must hold, and those things which, however firmly 
convinced of, he is yet aware are matters of private 
conviction. 

With these few prefatory words, I send to you 
pages which in any event would have been submitted 
with diffidence to the audience for which they were 
prepared, but which, in their present condition, are 
only forwarded because of your urgent request, in 
view of the importance of making no break in the 



Vlll INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 

series, and in confident reliance upon your kindness 
and judgment to make such changes and corrections 
as may be evidently called for. I sincerely hope and 
pray that in this imperfect form they may contribute 
something to fulfill the object of the lectureship • and 
when Providence restores to me my strength, my first 
labor shall be to put them into such form for publica- 
tion as may be more efficient to promote the aim of 
the generous founder whose name the foundation 
bears, and more worthy of being associated with the 
work of the Hobart Guild. George Z. Gray. 



EXTRACT FROM DEED OF -FOUNDATION 
OF THE BALDWIN LECTURES. 

" This Instrument, made and executed between 
Samuel Smith Harris, Bishop of the Protestant Epis- 
copal Church in the Diocese of Michigan, of the 
city of Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan, as party 
of the first part, and Henry P. Baldwin, Alonzo B. 
Palmer, Henry A. Hayden, Sidney D. Miller, and 
Henry P. Baldwin, 2d, of the State of Michigan, 
Trustees under the trust created by this instrument, 
as parties of the second part, witnesseth as fol- 
lows : — 

" In the year of Our Lord one thousand eight hun- 
dred and eighty-five, the said party of the first part, 
moved by the importance of bringing all practicable 
Christian influence to bear upon the great body of 
students annually assembled at the University of 
Michigan, undertook to promote and set in operation 
a plan of Christian work at said University, and col- 
lected contributions for that purpose, of which plan 
the following outline is here given, that is to say : — 

" 1. To erect a building or hall near the University 
in which there should be cheerful parlors, a well- 
equipped reading-room, and a lecture-room where the 
lectures hereinafter mentioned might be given. 

" 2. To endow a lectureship similar to the Bamp- 
ton Lectureship in England, for the Establishment 
and Defence of Christian Truth ; the lectures on such 



X FOUNDATION OF BALDWIN LECTURES. 

foundation to be delivered annually at Ann Arbor by 
a learned clergyman or other communicant of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church, to be chosen as herein- 
after provided : such lectures to be not less than six 
nor more than eight in number, and to be published 
in book form before the income of the fund shall be 
paid to the lecturer. 

" 3. To endow two other lectureships, one on Bib- 
lical Literature and Learning, and the other on Chris- 
tian Evidences : the object of such lectureships to be 
to provide for all the students who may be willing to 
avail themselves of them a complete course of instruc- 
tian in sacred learning, and in the philosophy of right 
thinking and right living, without which no education 
can justly be considered complete. 

"4. To organize a society, to be composed of the 
students in all classes and departments of the Uni- 
versity who may be members of or attached to the 
Protestant Episcopal Church, of which society the 
Bishop of the Diocese, the Rector, Wardens, and 
Vestrymen of St. Andrew's Parish, and all the Pro- 
fessors of the University who are communicants of 
the Protestant Episcopal Church should be members 
ex-officio, which society should have the care and 
management of the reading-room and lecture-room of 
the hall, and of all exercises or employments carried 
on therein, and should moreover annually elect each 
of the lecturers hereinbefore mentioned, upon the 
nomination of the Bishop of the Diocese. 

" In pursuance of the said plan, the said society 
of students and others has been duly organized under 
the name of the ' Hobart Guild of the University 
of Michigan ; ' the hall above mentioned has been 



FOUNDATION OF BALDWIN LECTURES. XI 

builded, and called ' Hobart Hall ; ' and Mr. Henry 
P. Baldwin, of Detroit, Michigan, and Sibyl A. Bald- 
win, his wife, have given to the said party of the first 
part the sum of ten thousand dollars for the endow- 
ment and support of the lectureship first hereinbefore 
mentioned. 

" Now, therefore, I, the said Samuel Smith Harris, 
Bishop as aforesaid, do hereby give, grant, and trans- 
fer to the said Henry P. Baldwin, Alonzo B. Palmer, 
Henry A. Hayden, Sidney D. Miller, and Henry P. 
Baldwin, 2d, Trustees as aforesaid, the said sum of 
ten thousand dollars, to be invested in good and safe 
interest-bearing securities, the net income thereof to 
be paid and applied from time to time as hereinafter 
provided, the said sum and the income thereof to be 
held in trust for the following uses : — 

" 1. The said fund shall be known as the Endow- 
ment Fund of the Baldwin Lectures. 

"2. There shall be chosen annually by the Ho- 
bart Guild of the University of Michigan, upon the 
nomination of the Bishop of Michigan, a learned cler- 
gyman or other communicant of the Protestant Epis- 
copal Church, to deliver at Ann Arbor, and under the 
auspices of the said Hobart Guild, between the Feast 
of St. Michael and All Angels and the Feast of St. 
Thomas, in each year, not less than six nor more 
than eight lectures, for the Establishment and De- 
fense of Christian Truth; the said lectures to be 
published in book form by Easter of the following 
year, and to be entitled 'The Baldwin Lectures ; ' and 
there shall be paid to the said lecturer the income of 
the said endowment fund, upon the delivery of fifty 
copies of said lectures to the said Trustees or their 



xii FOUNDATION OF BALDWIN LECTURES. 

successors ; the said printed volumes to contain, as 
an extract from this instrument, or in condensed 
form, a statement of the object and conditions of 
this trust." 



CONTENTS. 

• 

LECTURE I. 
What is Belief? i 

LECTURE II. 
What is Christianity ? 25 

LECTURE III. 
Was Jesus Christ an Historical Reality ? .... 62 

LECTURE IV. 
Who was Jesus Christ ? 95 

LECTURE V. 
What did Christ Found ? 129 

LECTURE VI. 
What is Theology? 166 

LECTURE VII. 
The Bible 196 



THE CHURCH'S CERTAIN FAITH. 



LECTURE I. 

WHAT IS BELIEF ? 

"By manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to 
every man's conscience in the sight of God." — 2 Cor. iv. 2. 

It should be clearly understood at the outset 
that these lectures are to be popular. It is an 
undoubted fact that there is among the laity 
a demand for a kind of information that is not 
sufficiently provided. Books and lectures that 
intend to commend and set forth the faith are 
apt to be either marked by a scholarship which, 
while admirable, is not adapted to those un- 
familiar with theological study and having little 
opportunity to become so, or else is unsatisfac- 
tory to the intelligent and the thoughtful reader. 
There is wanted a class of works that will help 
keen and reflective men and women, without be- 
ing either technical and erudite, or dogmatic and 
pedagogical. It is in this line that these lectures 
are planned, to give to such intelligent and inde- 
pendent minds as those who are addressed, in an 
ingenuous and sympathetic manner, a statement 



2 WHAT IS BELIEF? 

of what and why we believe in this Church of 
our love and our allegiance. 

The reason for the selection of the topics 
chosen for these lectures is that they cover all 
the ground of controversy — are the great ques- 
tions in issue in these days when there is so 
much religious discussion. For this is the char- 
acteristic of the mental activity of the age. 
Some insist that the interest in religion is dying 
out, and that Christianity does not occupy men's 
thoughts as it once did. I should say that this 
was precisely the reverse of the truth. If not a 
very religious age, it is at any rate more inter- 
ested in religious questions than any previous 
age has ever been. Periodicals and newspapers 
have regular religious departments. The books 
that sell are those that turn upon such matters. 
In fact, the writer of fiction who would gain a 
hearing must have some doctrine to preach, 
whether old or new ; and " art for art's sake " no 
longer seems to have any disciples in this de- 
partment. Clubs are occupied with these themes, 
and a religious discussion will insure a full meet- 
ing. Works on other subjects, on science of all 
sorts, trench upon the religious domain, and now 
and then even the mathematician will have his 
say upon it. It is true that all questions must 
somewhere trench upon religion, but it has been 
reserved for our days to see such abounding at- 
tention to it. Instead of religious matters being 
neglected, people will not let them alone who 



WHAT IS BELIEF? 3 

might sometimes do so to advantage. New isms 
are springing up out of the ferment. St. Paul 
said that the Athenians were "too religious," 
but the disputatiousness and fondness for new 
altars and original cults that we see are probably 
in excess of what marked their city. And so 
it is an age full of encouragement to the be- 
liever. We can look on and rejoice at all this 
religious interest, for although much of it is hos- 
tile and much is erring, yet it is an immense ad- 
vance upon the stagnation of a past age. What 
is wanted is that people should think upon the 
matters in issue, and even if they think wrongly, 
at any rate these subjects are before them, and 
there is assurance of the triumph of the truth, 
whose greatest enemy is indifference. But be- 
yond this, as we shall see later, much of the dis- 
cussion is earnest. It is an earnest questioning 
of received teachings in order to be sure that 
they are true. That is, this spirit of questioning 
is often a most sensible thing. To have difficul- 
ties of belief is not all a misfortune. Consider the 
complicated theologies in which most people are 
brought up, the old theories of Scripture and other 
things imposed by their churches, the ancestral 
beliefs handed down by the sects that exist but 
to perpetuate them, and then answer whether 
doubt and unrest are altogether to be regretted ; 
whether there is not room for still more critical 
inquiry into much that in popular religionism 
passes for Christian truth. 



4 WHA T IS BELIEF? 

The standpoint whence these topics are to be 
treated is what I understand to be that of this 
Church, or that of a strong and uncompromising 
churchmanship. This is a matter not always 
understood. It is made often to mean strong 
emphasizing of some particular features of the 
Church, rather than others, laying stress upon 
its institutions rather than its comprehensive- 
ness or catholicity ; so changing its conception 
as to make it a holy narrow Church, with apos- 
tolic order and very little room. Let us learn 
to emphasize both its institutions and its catho- 
licity. Be it our endeavor to set forth the idea 
of Christian brotherhood as at once contain- 
ing elements of fixity and elasticity, at once im- 
movably abiding by what is essential to the true 
discipleship of Christ and also giving free play 
within it to all the varied sorts and conditions of 
men and minds. The idea of the Church we as- 
sume and would maintain is not that of a vessel 
moored at both ends and motionless in the ebb 
and flow of tide, and the change and fall of winds, 
but it is that of a vessel anchored by that which 
reaches down to the very rock and grasps it 
firmly, and yet swings and moves as currents 
come and go — adapts itself to new conditions of 
the restless waters about it. In all this I shall 
try to speak as I believe the noble Bishop would 
have me speak to whose invitation these lectures 
are due, and with whose thought I was favored to 
be intimately acquainted, by conversations whose 



WHAT IS BELIEF? 5 

memory will ever be among the most treasured 
recollections of my life. Not only was it his 
brilliancy of intellect, his soundness of judgment, 
his masterly ability, his rare culture : it was also 
his signal apprehension of the true character of 
the Church, the correct replies to the questions 
we are to treat, that rendered him, in the estima- 
tion of those that knew him, one of the foremost 
men of our communion, a leader who gave prom- 
ise of achievements that no one else yet gives. 

In taking up our first question, What is belief ? 
it may be well to approach it by considering the 
state of men's minds on the subject, and certain 
confusions of thought that are prevalent. 

The religious condition of the age is much dis- 
cussed ; and we hear much that is despondent 
from those that believe, and exultant from those 
that do not. One's generalizations are apt to be 
affected by his surroundings, for we are all prone 
to confine ourselves to our own horizons. It 
is important neither to exaggerate nor to mini- 
mize the spread of unbelief. Let us notice one 
or two points that can safely be made. 

In the first place it is hardly wise to affirm 
that there is a decline of faith, in the sense of 
belief in things unseen and forms invisible. On 
the contrary, there never was so much of it since 
the world began. Instead of faith wanting, it is 
wisdom. We see everywhere its exaggerations, 
in the scenes at Lourdes, in faith cures, in mock 
sciences based upon it, in isms that are enough 



6 WHAT IS BELIEF? 

to drive sensible people to despair and make the 
scientific man feel his mission a failure. We 
sometimes hear of " the Ages of Faith " as de- 
parted never to return ; some rejoicing, others 
mourning, that they are vanished. Nevertheless 
they are coming back in aggravated form, and in- 
stead of too little there is too much faith, and not 
enough reason ; and whereas there is a regretta- 
ble amount of materialism that is formulated, and 
more that is practical, yet this is not a danger 
that threatens us as much as a soul-destroying 
spiritualism. For it is not true, as some seem 
to think, that the mere belief that there are un- 
seen realities has a saving or a purifying power. 

But how is it as to Christianity ? Is not that 
waning ? The really striking fact in the case is 
the slight degree to which its hold upon human 
hearts is affected by the changes and the assaults 
that these times are bringing. There is so much 
strength in the attacks that are made, so much 
eloquence, so much that is true even in what the 
opponents say, so much in the conditions of life 
to aid their endeavors, that it is a wonder they 
have not more success than thev have. But 
the numbers of recorded worshipers and com- 
municants are unprecedented, the statistics of 
expenditure for Christian purposes, of gifts for 
missions and charities, are beyond all in the past. 
This is clearly seen also by the perusal of such 
books as cast light upon the matter in the gen- 
erations that are gone, the last century and those 



WHAT IS BELIEF? J 

preceding. It would seem rash to affirm that at 
any date there has ever been so large a popula- 
tion in this or any other land professing Chris- 
tianity as there is to-day ; and it is equally verifia- 
ble that this increase is greatest among the most 
intelligent peoples and the most cultured indi- 
viduals. But to these add those who make no 
profession, but are living by faith in Christ. It 
is a great mistake to imagine, as both friends 
and foes are apt to do, that all Christian belief 
is included in the church-going part of the com- 
munity. It ought to be so, but it is not. Out- 
side of the pews there is a vast amount of trust 
in Christ and of following Him in life, of bearing 
trial because of the strength He gives and the 
hopes He awakens, and of doing good and bear- 
ing burdens in a spirit learned of Him. The in- 
fidel must not sing his song of victory over the 
decay of Christianity, nor the believer give way 
to lamentations, until this large element of un- 
demonstrative faith has been added to that which 
statistics embrace. Then the former may mod- 
erate his paeans and the latter his regrets. 

But is there no extensive decay of belief in 
Christ ? no giving up the gospel ? Yes, there is 
a sad amount of it ; a strange reverting to hea- 
thenism is often noticeable. Some people may 
be shocked by this name for it. But what is hea- 
thenism ? It is merely living without the gospel, 
religion without belief in God's answers to a 
world's needs. If one has given this up, he is a 



8 WHAT IS BELIEF? 

heathen, be it of the materialistic or more ele- 
vated and spiritual kind, and it is difficult to see 
why he should object to the name that describes 
him in this respect. And it is very amazing to 
see men and women in this nineteenth century, 
who have been blest by Christianity in their 
homes, their social life, in all that renders their 
lot different from that of skin-clad ancestors, giv- 
ing up all that marks them as favored beyond 
the nations that sit in darkness, and going back 
to live and educate their children, or trying to 
do so, in a way that was given up ages ago by 
their fathers as an intolerable thing, so soon as 
the light of Jesus came to them. Think of the 
enormity, the absurdity, of a citizen of a land 
like this, founded by Christians, made what it is, 
perhaps more than any other land, by Christian- 
ity, becoming a heathen again ! But while there 
is much of this real abandonment of the gospel, 
there is not so much as some think. The whole 
question is one of proportion, and while we can- 
not have statistics of mental conditions, yet all 
available indicate clearly that there never was so 
small a proportion of intelligent men and women 
who really disbelieved the essence of Christianity. 
The fact is that what unbelief there is now is 
more outspoken. There is a liberty now to say 
things once forbidden or discountenanced ; and 
we must be very careful not to conclude that be- 
cause more people say they give up faith, there- 
fore more have really done so than was the case 
in other days. 



WHAT IS BELIEF? 9 

But this leads us to ask what are really the sig- 
nificance and weight of the apparent doubt of 
the day ; for there is much that claims to be, and 
is, both questioning and denial of Christian be- 
liefs. We may consider this with reference to 
the matters questioned, or with reference to the 
spirit of the questioners. 

Much that passes for doubt and causes regret 
is really of no serious consequence, and does 
not affect essential Christian faith. This is seen 
when we divide the matters questioned into 
those for which Christianity is not responsible 
and those to which it is committed. 

Among the former are tenets which are held 
by this or that sect, or which are widely preva- 
lent without any definite home. The Christian 
Church, the brotherhood of believers, is not to 
stand or fall with any of these. We are so sur- 
rounded by the atmosphere of sectarianism that 
it is hard for most people to realize that they can 
question a great deal that is insisted upon by 
many people without touching Christianity ; that 
much which is the corner-stone of popular reli- 
gionism, many points that bodies about us make 
identical with the gospel, " the mark of a stand- 
ing or a falling church," are simply the particu- 
lar notions of individuals or sects, and as much 
subject to approval or rejection as any other 
opinion. It were well to do a little more ques- 
tioning as to the tenets of recent and erratic 
sects, or even to question the capacity of any 



IO WHAT IS BELIEF? 

founders of larger and older ones to lay down 
final tests of correct belief ; to criticise keenly 
any addition to the simplest statement of the 
gospel. Such things, for instance, as doctrines 
of predestination, and theories of eternal punish- 
ment, and explanatory dogmas about the atone- 
ment, and this or that man's assertions about the 
Bible, are as open to criticism as any teaching of 
a professor in his chair. The Church of Christ, 
Christianity, is not committed to any school of 
opinion upon these subjects, and he who accepts 
the catholic creeds may doubt all the theories 
and explanations of them and yet be entitled to 
every privilege and every hope of the believer. 
It is time that assailants as well as defenders 
learned that Christianity is not concerned, its 
issues are not at stake, its claims are not im- 
periled, in the attack upon any tenet or belief 
that is but the shibboleth of some one or more 
bodies in the land. The overthrow of such things 
may destroy sects, or cut the ground from under 
preachers of such ideas ; but the gospel is not 
touched, reasons for believing it are not weak- 
ened, the Church's voice is not discredited, until 
some one point on which the Church is commit- 
ted in its apostolic faith is overthrown. Learn 
then not to be anxious about the rejection of, nor 
to fight for as essential, any article of belief that 
marks any fragment, or any local or transient 
organization, of Christendom. 

As to doubt upon matters to which Christian- 



WHAT IS BELIEF? II 

ity is really committed, to say that there are two 
different sorts of doubt is not a subtle refining of 
distinctions, but is only to say what every obser- 
ver has noticed. Often what is doubted is not 
the thing itself, but some misapprehension of it. 
This misapprehension may be due to mistaking 
the sense of terms or of dogmas because of in- 
sufficient information, or because of the way in 
which they have been interpreted by bodies of 
Christians or by individuals of influence. This 
may lead to conceptions of truths that ought to 
be rejected, out of respect to the faith itself. 
For instance, when an eminent divine so teaches 
the doctrine of the Trinity that others could not, 
and he said he hardly could, distinguish it from 
the idea of three Gods, the man who knows no 
better statement of it must deny it ; or, when 
one is taught that the inspiration of the Bible 
means mechanical dictation to its writers, he may 
well say that if that is what it actually means he 
cannot believe it. In either case a man is not 
doubting anything that Christianity is committed 
to, but only what ill-advised persons have imputed 
to it. The true way, then, is for him to ascertain 
just what the dogma meant to those who framed 
it, or the word to those who adopted it ; what is 
meant now by the wise and true representatives 
of the faith ; what is intended to be affirmed, and 
what is not, in the creeds of Christendom. This 
will put an aspect so entirely different upon the 
matter, that, it is safe to say, few of the apparent 



12 WHAT IS BELIEF? 

deniers of the Christian creeds really impugn 
what the Catholic Church meant to affirm by 
their most disputed assertions. One of the most 
difficult things in controversy is to get a plain, 
clear issue. Too frequently, the assailant and 
the defender have different things in mind, be- 
cause of this prevalence of misapprehension, and 
the cause of truth is imperiled by the defender's 
accepting the issue as made up by the assailant, 
and assenting to his definition of a doctrine as 
the true statement of it : the refutation of which 
leaves the real question untouched, though it 
scores an apparent victory for the enemy. 

All this might be amplified ; but what has 
been said will suffice to show that actual doubt 
of the faith is seen to be much less than some 
suppose, by deducting doubt of matters that any 
one is at liberty to deny, and criticism of state- 
ments that do not correctly express the teaching 
of the Church or the Bible, and therefore ought 
to be denied in justice to those teachings them- 
selves. This is the real reason of that calmness 
with which many regard much of the seeming 
doubt and much of the active repudiation of so- 
called orthodoxy, which others, nurtured upon 
shibboleths and bred in one-sided conceptions, 
regard as indifference to truth. Such persons 
know that in many cases that to which Christian- 
ity is committed, the actual doctrines of the gos- 
pel, are either not doubted or not involved in the 
issues so hotly discussed. Real unbelief begins, 



WHAT IS BELIEF? 1 3 

and only begins, when some positive affirmation, 
which is truly a part of the faith once delivered, 
is intelligently and intentionally traversed. 

But it is more germane to our object at present 
to consider the spirit of the questioning. It is 
true that in many minds it springs from a spirit 
of unbelief, from a love of destructiveness, or a 
pride that will not admit any source of wisdom 
or of help greater than themselves. How much 
of this there is cannot of course be estimated, 
but it is rash to say that there is as much as some 
allege. Much that is attributed to such a spirit 
is known not to be due to it by those who are 
acquainted with the facts. They whose doubts 
are really due to it cannot be argued with : they 
are to be appealed to, and their heart, their con- 
science, their religious sense aroused, in order 
that they may realize that their attitude is wrong 
and not one in which serious issues can be dealt 
with. It is useless to argue about religious mat- 
ters with those who are not in an earnest, reli- 
gious state of mind. All argument must be con- 
fined to those sufficiently awake to the matter to 
heed what is said and sufficiently aware of their 
limitations to be willing to be humble and recep- 
tive in spirit ; and this is the condition of most 
of those, in all probability, who are questioning 
the truths of Christianity to-day, at any rate of 
the candid ones, those whom we meet and whom 
we know and respect. They form a large class 
of the community and are more or less outspoken 



14 WHAT IS BELIEF? 

in their dissent, and we may learn much from 
them. They are not skeptics in spirit : they are 
willing to believe what they ought to believe. 
They only want to be sure that they believe 
rightly, to have their beliefs accord with their 
convictions. This is itself a healthy state of 
mind. Such men by their position teach us the 
nature of belief, cast light upon what real faith is. 

There are two kinds of mental attitude that 
are called faith, which are widely different, and 
denote different worlds of experience and life. 

One is believing a thing or a proposition be- 
cause it is told us upon some authority claimed 
to be adequate for the purpose. This is believ- 
ing upon authority ; and it has been the position 
generally held in the past and widely urged now, 
and all that even in some wise and apparently 
thoughtful minds is meant, and deemed possible, 
in matters of religion. 

The other is the position of many earnest men 
who conceive that the day for that is gone. It 
may have been good and necessary once, it may 
be so for the young and ignorant now, but for 
thoughtful, inquiring minds it is not satisfactory. 
They wish to see for themselves, not merely 
receive reports of what others see, in issues 
so supremely important as those here at stake. 
Whether this position is reasonable or not, it is 
in fact one that is taken by many people, and by 
most of that class that we want to reach, because 
they are the influential and moulding minds of 



WHAT IS BELIEF? 1 5 

the day in any community. Such people must 
be dealt with in some way. It is idle to say that 
they are flippant, or skeptical, or self-sufficient, 
for it is not of those that we are speaking. On 
the contrary, they are those who have in them 
the making of the most valuable and efficient be- 
lievers. 

Again, we are told that to insist upon faith 
resting on any external authority is making skep- 
tics and infidels by the multitude. They who are 
not satisfied with the authority will contend that 
if our faith only rests upon it, then it has no 
claims on them. Or, others will say that if we 
have no reason to give for our beliefs, save that 
others teach them, we give up the case and do 
not claim that they are true, but only that they 
are to us sufficiently attested, which is a very dif- 
ferent thing, and means that there is no certi- 
tude in religious matters, only probability, since 
all our confidence in authority is only a question 
of probability. 

There must be more than this. There must 
surely be certitude ; assurance must be attain- 
able. The Church must meet this issue, must 
show that Christian faith can be certain to the 
man who has it, and so must have some reply to 
those who say that authority is always open to 
question. If the statement that two and two 
make four, or that stealing is wrong, or that there 
is reward for piety, only rests upon authority 
of some sort, then either proposition is far from 



1 6 WHAT IS BELIEF? 

being a thing above doubt to a candid and think- 
ing man. 

An esteemed clergyman was once heard to say 
that there are so many difficulties about Chris- 
tianity and so many cogent arguments on either 
side that he only believed in its doctrines because 
the Church brought them to him. Of course, 
this man did not believe them true at all. He 
accepted them, submitted to the authority that 
imposed them, would not contradict them ; but 
he could not say that he was sure of them, knew 
them true. He was through and through a skep- 
tic, without faith. If this really represented his 
state of mind, (as indeed it did not,) then he was 
not leaning on the gospel he preached, but on the 
Church. That is, there is no real belief in such 
a case. One who believes upon authority be- 
lieves only the authority. He does not believe 
the thing itself to be true. The former may be 
safe, it may be a state of mind fruitful of good 
results, out it is not faith. Faith means the 
heart's assent to the truth itself. 

True belief is believing for ourselves, seeing 
for ourselves that a thing is true, assenting to it 
because we know it to be so, not because others 
affirm it, whoever they may be. This is assur- 
ance, certainty, which we must have to find any 
help in our faith, any comfort in our trust. It 
is the faith of conviction as distinct from the 
faith of assent. It is the only kind that has ever 
done real work in the world ; the kind that has 



WHAT IS BELIEF? 1/ 

made martyrs, that has rendered men immovable 
by temptation, or persecution, or argument. It 
is the kind that Christ sought to awaken, when 
He taught the disciples that in Him they might 
have peace, or when He promised the light of 
life to those that believe in Him. It was St. 
Paul's faith when he said : " I know Him whom I 
have believed," or when he compares his hope to 
" an anchor which entereth into that within the 
veil." 

But why argue, that the only faith that is 
actual and really deserves the name, the only one 
that can be a source of confidence, the only one 
that should be satisfactory to the Church, the 
one that should be aimed at, is that which is 
believing a thing for one's self, accepting any 
verity because it is seen to be a verity ? Because 
this spirit, which marks the sincere questioning 
of the day, and is the state of mind of many who 
hold aloof from the ordinances of Christianity, is 
one to be encouraged, whose demand is to be 
met as reasonable and right. Such faith is more 
than a reasonable faith, which means a faith for 
which reasons can be given, and which, in real- 
ity, is not faith : it is persuasion by urgent con- 
siderations. True faith is believing, not because 
of persuasive arguments, nor because one cannot 
escape the conclusion, nor because our minds are 
overpowered by what others adduce, but believing 
because one sees that the thing believed is true, 
apart from reasoning, by direct perception which 



1 8 WHAT IS BELIEF? 

leaves no doubt. It is like belief in the sunshine, 
which is a matter, not of reasons for believing it, 
but of personal, immediate vision. It is being 
conscious of it, not persuaded that it exists. 

This, then, is the kind of faith that we may and 
should have, that of personal assurance, of im- 
mediate conviction. We are entitled to demand 
that anything we are asked to believe shall be seen 
to be true, but we are bound to accept what is so 
seen. That is, when any one asks us to believe 
a thing, he may be expected to show that we 
ought to believe it, because it is perceptibly true ; 
and we are bound to do so if it so appears, whether 
we can explain it or not. 

Why are we so bound ? Because we have a 
capacity for religious and moral truth, are not 
unable to discriminate between it and error, al- 
though of course not always with the same cer- 
tainty. We all claim it, all day long. When a 
man says I will not believe this, or I maintain 
that against all argument, what does it mean but 
that he knows he can tell right from wrong, truth 
from error ? Every revolt against authority, 
whether justified or not, every positive affirma- 
tion, implies it. It is the basis of all argument. 
When we reason with a man, we know we cannot 
force him to a conclusion. We try to make him 
see what we are maintaining, presuming that he 
can see truth if we can put it rightly. All life 
and intercourse move on this basis. The only 
reason for blaming one for anything wrong is 



WHAT IS BELIEF? 1 9 

that he could know what is right. We act upon 
it every day, assume it in our own conduct and 
in our relations with others. So we claim for our- 
selves the power to see what is true, and we de- 
mand of others that they do so. 

Can any one, it is asked, actually discern all 
truth when presented to him ? Is the statement 
absolute ? No, it is, as with anything else, a 
matter of development and growth. We do not 
expect a child to see the truth of many a matter 
that older persons are expected to discern, in 
morals, or in duty, or in logic. So in the dis- 
cernment of spiritual things : in measure as one 
is spiritually alive and mature in intelligence he 
can see what is error, and what is verity, in 
things spiritual. We do not expect the gross 
man whose higher nature is dead or torpid to 
perceive what others perceive. We do expect 
those who are developed in that nature to per- 
ceive, and follow, and accept truth, in the higher 
realms. We all agree that this power of percep- 
tion, or of discrimination, is a thing that can and 
should be and is progressive in the world and in 
individuals. It follows that if any one were spir- 
itually perfect, if his eyes were cleansed and his 
heart purified, he could always discriminate be- 
tween truth and error ; and this is our hope in 
the life to come, where there will be no delusions 
because there will be no blinded si^ht. Not that 
we can see it except as shown to us. God must 
always be revealed. No man can by searching 



20 WIIA T IS BELIEF? 

find Him out. But what we do and must expect 
is that we shall be able to recognize His verities 
when presented, and to see that what is said to 
us is true not only because He makes it known, 
but true of and in itself. So as we advance in 
spirituality here below we can see more and more 
by direct vision ; can have the faith, not of testi- 
mony, but of personal perception. This alone is 
faith in the truth, as distinct from faith in the 
witness to it. 

Christ always claims this faith, and asserts this 
capacity in us, as regards His gospel. He does 
not argue, or give reasons why we should believe 
what He says. Nor does He impose it upon us 
to be received simply because He says it. He 
says over and over again such things as this : 
" He that is of the truth heareth my voice." He 
says not, "Ye must believe what I say," but 
always implies that we ought to believe it be- 
cause we can see that it is true. He appeals to 
men, does not use syllogisms nor coercion, sim- 
ply takes for granted their capacity for immedi- 
ate perception and conviction, and expects them 
to exercise it, and to believe and confess that 
He is " the truth, the way, and the life." So did 
all the apostles, notably St. Paul. He does not 
argue for Christ's gospel, though he may reason 
out its implications and inferences. He simply 
presents truth and expects it to be received, ap- 
peals to the consciences of men to follow what 
he assumes they can know is to be followed. He 



WHAT IS BELIEF? 21 

asserts this faith of conviction as distinct from 
that of authority, as being the only true faith 
and the one alone worthy of Christians, in such 
passage s as these : " Spiritual things are spirit- 
ually c nscerne d ; " we endure " as seeing Him 
who is invisible ; " and above all in the precept 
set for tn in our text : " By manifestation of the 
truth c<° mmencHn g ourselves to every man's con- 
science m the sight of God." This shows the 
positioi 1 °f an inspired man, which ought to set- 
tle the matter for the believer and for the unbe- 
liever that we are asked to believe only what is 
shown to be true. This was St. Paul's principle 
of preaching, not arguing for the truth by pro- 
cesses pf logic which may convince the intellect, 
nor req lurm o its acceptance because of the over- 
whelming weight of authority, but simply mani- 
festing, making plain, the truth, and thus expect- 
ing that nien would accept it because able to 
reco°-nr ze it to be true. Thus he preached, and 
so did the early Church. Those were times 
when n° °ne cared for his or the Church's au- 
thority j J ust as with Christ, who spoke to those 
who kn ew not, or cared not, that He was the 
Son of God ; and in those times the gospel had 
simply t :0 g° upon its own merits, had no power 
except t ; he power of truth recognizable by men. 
So has it been ever since. Whatever good has 
been do ne D y authority, and this good we do not 
deny, all the real converting work of the Church 
has bee n done by making men know and see 



22 WHAT IS BELIEF? 

the salvation that is in Christ, by presenting the 
gospel to them ; which has awakened that faith 
that has been immovable by temptation or by 
trial, because the faith of knowledge, not of tes- 
timony. How much more should we expect this 
to be the case now, when all about us have had 
their eyes open to visions which the heathen had 
not, have in some measure the mind of Christ, 
and so possess a capacity to discern what is bind- 
ing upon conscience, what is true of God, and 
of His dealings ; which warrants us in expecting 
their assent to the gospel even more readily than 
in other days and other lands. 

To those who say, as some do, that it is un- 
safe to leave it to mankind to accept the truth of 
the gospel as they shall see it true, we answer 
that it is of the very essence of skepticism to 
affirm this.- Are we not to believe in the power 
of truth, and of truth in Christ, to carry convic- 
tion ? We had supposed it was the power of 
missions and the encouragement of our preach- 
ing, that, when properly presented, men would 
see that Christianity is what they want, what 
meets their needs, what lays hold of their hearts 
and claims the assent of their consciences. We 
had supposed that it was so welcome, so direct a 
response to the appeals of men, that when con- 
cerned in religious matters they who hear would 
at once say that they knew it true and would 
cast their all upon it. And so it is. The prac- 
tice of Christ and of the apostles in their preach- 



WIIA T IS BELIEF? 23 

ing, all the experience of centuries, our own ex- 
perience, our confidence in the truth of God, 
agree to repudiate the unbelieving and skeptical 
affirmation that the gospel of the Son of God 
needs argument and authority to secure its ac- 
ceptance. It only needs statement of its glories 
and precious truths and appeals to conscience, to 
be accepted. This is the way in which we who 
believe have been won from our unbelief. This 
is the way in which those are asked to come to 
Christ who may not have done so. When and 
if they care for a gospel from God, they will see 
that this is it, and that it is real. No man who 
has known Christ by direct vision and relation- 
ship will give Him up. Any man is liable to give 
Him up who only knows that some one else tes- 
tifies to Him. 

It will be said that this does not produce agree- 
ment, and that there will be endless divergence if 
men are left to their conscience, and if they are 
urged to believe because and when they see the 
truth. Has the method of presenting the faith 
by arguing for it been successful in this respect ? 
No one will maintain that it has. And as to au- 
thority, if anything is written large upon the 
page of history, it is that this has not succeeded 
in producing agreement. The effort to produce 
it has resulted in disagreement, and rebellion, 
and schisms, all through the ages. There has 
been no more disastrous failure in the past than 
such an attempt. There is none now. Men will 



24 WHA T IS BELIEF? 

not submit to dictation when intelligent, or when 
they do, it is only up to a certain point. But on 
the other hand there has been agreement on the 
basis of appealing to the spiritual manhood, the 
consciences of men. Despite the divisions and 
antagonisms of the past, it is one of the wonders 
of religious history that real Christians have 
been substantially agreed in what their hearts 
have accepted. 

About the essence of Christianity, the nature 
of Christ, the nature of His work, the agency of 
the Holy Ghost, the whole creed of Christendom, 
there has been unity : not because of any author- 
ity, since it has been among those often sun- 
dered, but because all have seen those things to 
be true by the eye of their spiritual sense. The 
history of Christianity is sufficient evidence of 
the fact that if left to themselves, if properly 
taught or shown the gospel truth, Christian peo- 
ple would come to agreement in as far as they 
were willing to follow their lights ; and if not an 
organic unity, at any rate an agreement in be- 
lief such as has never yet been effected by any 
reasoning about doctrines or enforcing them by 
authority. 



LECTURE II. 

WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY ? 

" I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, 
. . . and wherein ye stand : by which also ye are saved ; . . . 
For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, 
how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures ; 
and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day 
according to the Scriptures." — I Cor. xv. 1-3. 

What is Christianity ? What is it that is pro- 
posed to us by the Church for our acceptance, and 
the acceptance of which renders us disciples of 
Jesus ? What is it that we have in Him which 
constitutes Him the Saviour of those that are 
His people ? This is the question to which we 
now turn. 

It may seem a very unnecessary question, and 
may be met at once with the answer that, of 
course, every one knows what Christianity is, 
that there are more unsettled issues that call for 
our attention. But that is not the case. His- 
tory shows that there is no question upon which 
Christians have been more divided than the very 
fundamental one as to the essential character of 
what St. Paul terms "the vocation" wherewith 
they are called ; and observation shows that it is 
the same at present. Not that true believers 



26 WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 

vary in their inner life, in the relations of their 
hearts to the Redeemer ; but nevertheless, in 
theory, they " who profess and call themselves 
Christians" disagree ab initio as to what they 
would define Christianity to be. This is proven 
by the divisions that have been so frequent, by 
the corruptions to which Christendom has been 
subjected, and by the persecutions that have 
marked its history. How can all this be ac- 
counted for, save by the existence of a radical 
divergence as to what constitutes the true faith 
of Christ's holy name ? For divergence here 
affects everything else. They who separate on 
this issue pursue paths that never come together 
again. And, on the other hand, all differences 
among Christians on other matters, all that pro- 
duces separation and alienation, may be traced 
back to underlying differences here. This will 
be seen as we proceed, and it shows how the 
consideration of this matter must precede those 
which are to follow. Our conceptions of Christ, 
the Church, Theology, the Bible, will depend 
upon our conclusions here, and it is only by a 
happy inconsistency that one who is astray in 
this issue can, as undoubtedly many do, hold cor- 
rect and helpful views upon these subjects. 

Many answers are given, more or less expli- 
citly, to our question ; but they may all be re- 
duced to three, each of which carries with it 
weighty consequences, and such as can have no 
place under its alternatives. 



WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 27 

One is that Christianity is a set of laws for 
life, to be met by submissive obedience. Christ 
came to be a lawgiver, to guide us into a con- 
duct which will secure the rewards that God has 
to bestow. This was the tendency of the Chris- 
tianity of Europe in the early ages, due to the 
fact that the Church had as its task the reducing 
to order of barbarous and turbulent peoples. 
Fortunately, the Church had the power to make 
itself obeyed by them when it spoke in magis- 
terial tones, and we must see the hand of Pro- 
vidence in its work. But the tendency was 
worked out very naturally in the practical teach- 
ing of Rome, that obedience to Christ, through 
the Church that represents Him, regard for its 
rules and canons, is that which constitutes per- 
sonal piety. But this conception of Christianity 
is not confined to Rome. It is openly maintained 
by some who speak of " the religion of Jesus 
Christ," who mean that His work was to show 
us the correct laws of life, that He redeems by 
a faultless guidance. 

It is undoubtedly to be admitted, that Jesus 
gave us laws for life, " leaving us an example 
that ye should follow His steps ; " but this does 
not define His work in its essentials, nor give us 
the relation in which the believer is to stand to 
Him. To say that one's obeying Christ makes 
him a disciple jars upon the ear that is attuned 
to the language of the gospel narratives. It is 
not the attitude that He expects. It is at war 



28 WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 

with all that is regenerating and precious in 
Christianity, reduces it to the level of the world's 
philosophies and religions, transforms a Friend 
and a Saviour into a ruler and a pedagogue. 

Another definition of Christianity is that it is 
a series of doctrines to be received, that is, doc- 
trines in the sense of theological propositions. 
This was the prevailing tendency of the Eastern 
Church, which regarded Christ chiefly as the 
revealer of divine truth. But it has been also 
the prevailing character of Protestantism, which, 
since its first days, has not actually held to that 
principle of justification by faith which it has pro- 
fessed to advocate so strenuously. Controversy 
with Rome and frequent internal dissensions 
led very naturally to the emphasizing of correct 
opinion, or precise doctrine ; and this resulted 
in the identification of the gospel with dogmatic 
statements. This idea has become deeply im- 
bedded in the popular mind, is so generally the 
conception of the Church's work, that, probably, 
it would be the answer given, as a matter of 
course, by the average person to the question, 
What is Christianity ? It is on this basis that 
Christianity is attacked by most of its assailants. 
This is the assumption and the strength of ag- 
nosticism, which asserts that our doctrines are 
but speculations concerning abstruse things, and 
at the most only guesses. This definition may 
still appear correct to superficial thinkers, and 
be defended by some who claim to speak for the 



WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 29 

faith. It is plausible, and seems to be what the 
Church has taught us ; but all its force is due to 
a confusion of thought. It involves errors and 
evils that condemn it as unwarranted, and the 
vindication of our belief is not to be encumbered 
with the difficulties that it brings with it. 

Unquestionably, correct doctrine is important. 
Right living must always be connected with 
right thinking. Furthermore, Christ did give us 
light upon divine things, which we are to accept. 
But the statement that Christianity is a set of 
doctrinal propositions cannot stand for an in- 
stant. 

In the first place, it also jars upon the ear that 
is used to the words of Jesus, to the invitations 
that He made, and the relationship which He 
sought to create between Himself and men. 
But, beyond this, it leads logically to the posi- 
tion that to accept these propositions makes one 
a disciple ; or that soundness of belief on deep 
things constitutes acceptability before God. This 
has been in fact the result wherever this idea has 
been held. It led, as we all know, in the Greek 
Church, to a complete divorce between religion 
and life, to the substitution of orthodoxy of con- 
fession for personal piety ; and it has done the 
same thing very widely in the Protestant world. 
It is to-day maintained, by implication if not ex- 
pressly ; as, in a Christendom divided by secta- 
rianism it must be : for a sect gives up the rea- 
son for its existence if it says that correct opinion 



30 WHA T IS CHRISTIANITY? 

is not supreme in importance. Orthodoxy, or 
what is regarded as such, is evidently believed to 
be the crowning virtue, the great criterion of 
Christianity, by a multitude of our fellow citi- 
zens in this land. It has been, and still is, made 
to do that which only charity should do, "cover 
a multitude of sins ; " and rightly so, if to be- 
lieve in Christ is to assent to tenets. It also 
leads to the corollary that the more doctrines a 
man assents to, the more fully he is a theologian, 
the more advanced and real a Christian is he. 
Then, the wise and learned, not the lowly and 
ignorant, can alone be Christ's ideal followers. 
Then, the untutored saints, the obscure ones 
who have known little of such things, are ex- 
cluded from the crowns to which we had thought 
them entitled. 

The evils that have consistently flowed from 
this idea of Christianity condemn it. It has 
been, with perfectly plain warrant, the cause of 
quarrels and heart burnings and self-righteous- 
ness. It has lighted the fires of persecution, 
and covered fields with blood. The man who 
holds to it may be shocked by the atrocities of 
an Alva seeking to reduce the Netherlands to 
correct belief by the sword, but he has no right 
to condemn his principle. 

So, both these answers to our question are, to 
one who has "the mind of Christ," condemned 
by their implications, if not by their very utter- 
ance. But they are condemned by another test 



WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 3 1 

which must be final. I dwell upon this, because 
our fellow religionists are generally astray here, 
despite their professions to the contrary ; and 
because the amplification of the error may lead 
to the elucidation of the truth regarding the 
matter, which to many is really difficult of per- 
ception. The effect of religious controversy, 
most of it entirely unnecessary, has been a great 
confusion of thought, rendering it to many no 
easy task to see why we must earnestly repudi- 
ate the very idea that Christianity may be de- 
fined in either of the ways mentioned ; why it is 
perilous to its essence and its value to use lan- 
guage implying, in any manner, that we regard 
it as either a code of laws or a system of doc- 
trines. 

Any definition of our faith must be such as 
makes it a gospel. This is what the race calls 
for, in its sorrows and its sins, and every sympa- 
thetic heart longs for it. Some intervention from 
on high to help them bear their burdens is the 
one prayer of the children of men. Now, Chris- 
tianity claims to be such. Christ Himself al- 
ways so spoke. His work is summed up in that 
invitation, " Come unto me, and I will give you 
rest." As such it was always presented by His 
apostles. So to preach it, the Church was 
founded and commissioned. Furthermore, a gos- 
pel must be a power to better men, to transform 
character. The wish to comfort has been the 
aim of every benefactor of the race, but none 



32 WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 

has succeeded in the effort. The task was ever 
beyond him. So the endeavor of philosophers 
has been to find a power that will free men from 
their sinfulness, deliver them from " the body of 
this death." They have told of the love of ideal 
beauty, the enthusiasm of humanity, and the 
power of habit, but these have all been found 
vain. After all their eloquence, their listeners 
have replied that something else was needed to 
be a good news for those who wanted help to 
change the downward current of their lives, to 
enable them to curb their passions or to purify 
their hearts. If Christianity is a gospel, it must 
be equal to these demands. But how can it pos- 
sibly be such under either of the definitions that 
have been given, and which are so widely held, 
in fact if not in form ? Is it a code of laws ? Is 
Jesus a Saviour in that He is an example ? Has 
He revealed to us only the way that we should 
walk in ? How can that transform us ? Then the 
motive to sway us can only be a spirit of obe- 
dience. But that will never change the heart. 
On the contrary, the heart must first be changed 
before it can obey. Some motive is demanded 
adequate to render men willing and able to fol- 
low this example. And how can it comfort? It 
is just the reverse ; it is a discouragement. We 
already know, enough of our duty to crush us, 
and a Christ who merely shows us laws that God 
would have us obey only adds new burdens. He 
does not save, but condemns. It were better if 



WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 33 

He had never come, than that He should have 
come but to present perfect ideals to those whose 
hearts are sad and whose lives are dark because 
of their conscious inability to realize the imper- 
fect ideals that they have already before them. 
Or, how is it with the definition that Christianity 
is but a system of doctrinal statements about 
things mysterious and divine, given to us by 
Jesus, as the race's teacher ? What has that to 
do with the change of character ? It may arouse 
the motive to understand them, stimulate men- 
tal activity ; but how can assent to truths make 
one better ? To suppose that a man's admission 
that a proposition is true will do him any good 
is the fallacy at the bottom of persecution, and 
also of controversial argument. It is a complete 
non-sequittir. He may be convinced by reason- 
ing, or coerced by suffering, and yet be unaf- 
fected in his life. And the result is the same 
when the definition is tested by the fact that the 
Church's mission is to do what God wills when 
He says, " Comfort ye my people." How can it 
do so with such a Christianity ? What consola- 
tion is there in mere dogmas or doctrines ? What 
peace is found for the tried and the suffering, the 
weary and the heavy laden, in the possession of 
mere knowledge ? Wherein can they do more 
than the propositions of philosophy or the teach- 
ings of art ? How can either conception of our 
religion give rest ? How can we know whether 
we correctly apprehend the doctrine or sufri- 



34 WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 

ciently obey the laws, with which some would 
identify it ? No one can know in either case 
that he has warrant for feeling "confidence to- 
wards God," — whether he is really a Christian 
or not. Orthodoxy of thought, as well as ortho- 
doxy of life, is ever an uncertain thing ; and, if 
we rely upon it, we must say, as Rome does con- 
sistently, that we cannot tell, until the judgment 
day, whether we can hope for "the rest that re- 
maineth for the people of God," whether we 
are partakers of " the salvation that is in Christ 
Jesus." In either case, we are driven to salva- 
tion by works, and that means despair ; for any 
thoughtful man sees that he cannot find peace 
through his own works, save by adopting stand- 
ards which he knows to be lower than the ideal, 
when the ideal is alone the true. 

What, then, is the definition of Christianity 
which will render it a gospel ? It is that which 
was universal in Christendom until controversy 
and corruption blinded the eyes of Christians to 
the true preciousness of their Saviour ; that which, 
despite all this, has yet been the changeless defi- 
nition of the Church in its one accepted confes- 
sion ; that which, behind all confusions and per- 
versions of mind, is the conception that strength- 
ens the heart and sways the life of every real 
believer to-day. It is that we have in Christ a 
body, not of laws nor of dogmas, but of facts ; 
that the Church is to make known, as received 
from Him, not merely rules for conduct nor dis- 



WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 35 

closures regarding things mysterious and divine, 
but certain actual transactions, things effected, 
abiding relationships established, that change the 
whole character and outlook of life. We need 
to know God, to have a revelation of Him that 
is found in no source which is accessible to us 
here below ; to know whether and how we may 
be spared the consequences of our guilt, and be 
freed from the anxieties that lie so heavily on 
the heart of humanity. This race is ever asking : 
Is there any salvation from the guilt and the mas- 
tery of sin ? Is there any hope in presence of the 
all-conquering power of death ? Is there any care 
that watches over us and directs events for good ? 
Has anything been done, is there any provision, 
for these great wants of a world that only knows 
its own impotence, and walks through mystery 
to darker mysteries before it ? To such ques- 
tions, compared to which all others sink into pale 
insignificance, Christianity is the answer, in the 
person, the life, the work, the death, the resur- 
rection, the ascension of Jesus Christ ; in His 
gift of the Holy Spirit, in His living, directing 
presence, unseen yet actual ; facts all as real as 
any facts of history or experience. This is set 
forth in the ordinance of baptism, wherein Jesus 
comes to us and we to Him : that God is Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost ; that in Him are provi- 
dence, salvation, sanctification, not only disclosed 
as dispositions of mind, but shown to be opera- 
tive in actual events, producing new relation- 



36 WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 

ships, readjustments, restoration, through the 
historical occurrences of the career of Jesus. So 
Christianity comes to us as a series of concrete 
facts relating to God's dealing with us for our 
redemption, some having occurred long ago, some 
present realities to-day, some yet to be realized ; 
all parts of the one great fact of the mediatorial 
work of Christ. 

This is the way in which Jesus Himself preached 
His gospel, and markedly the manner in which 
His apostles preached, as seen by the many ex- 
amples that we have of their mode of presenting 
their message. They always preached as St. Paul 
did in our text. He was concerned, in this letter 
to the Corinthians, with the matter of the resur- 
rection, and instead of any abstract statements 
simply says that his gospel tidings regarding it 
was making known certain facts concerning the 
resurrection of Christ. And what was the Church 
organized for ? Only and solely to do as they did 
who founded it, proclaim these facts brought 
about by and included in the work of the Re- 
deemer. Therefore it is consistent that the 
Church's universal Creed, the one on which 
Christians are united, the one which alone our 
historical fold requires for baptism, the so-called 
Apostles' Creed, should be a statement of them. 
There is not a law, nor a dogmatic proposition in 
it : only a list of actual occurrences, past, present, 
and future, which constitute the salvation of 
mankind. This is what a creed must always be 



WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 7>7 

for a body that would proclaim the gospel. To 
introduce doctrinal definitions, or rules for con- 
duct, may be good elsewhere, but they have no 
place in a statement of what is to be made known 
in a ministry to the world. And so it must be 
whenever that work is done. There are bodies 
that have more or less elaborate confessions to 
which they exact assent from those who would 
join them, because they express what their seces- 
sions stand for ; but, when they would do mis- 
sionary work, they are compelled to give all 
these up and preach only the redemptive facts 
that constitute Christianity ; therein coming back 
to just what their fathers gave up for some tem- 
porary theological system, or for the dogmatic 
inferences of some earnest but unduly confident 
speculations. Would that none had ever forgot- 
ten that the Christian message is simply one of 
actual transactions in our behalf ; and that all 
had abstained from that tendency to affirm ab- 
stract principles, to elaborate all the conse- 
quences and implications of gospel details, which 
has really cursed Christendom, and has been 
the weakness and injury of a Protestantism that 
gave greater hopes for the world than have been 
realized. 

In the light of this definition we see what is 
personal Christianity. It is a resting upon those 
facts, confidence in their adequacy for our needs, 
as mortals and as immortals. That is, it is faith. 
The other conceptions mentioned are met by 



38 WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 

intellectual submission, and by obedience ; but 
this is met by trust. Intellectual submission 
and obedience are not religious acts. They do 
not make a man pious, though they may render 
him wise and decent ; but faith is a religious, a 
pious thing, and, as all these facts on which we 
rest for our salvation are achievements of Christ, 
Christian piety is after all faith in Him as the 
sufficient Saviour of men from all their ills and 
all their perils. 

This comforts. The acceptance of, and repos- 
ing upon, such verities as those in the creed of 
Christendom must and does make men strong to 
overcome the world, hopeful in discouragement, 
able to confide in God despite conscious sinful- 
ness, and to persevere despite repeated weakness 
of will ; yes, able to lay away their dear ones 
without despair and to see their own lives ebbing 
without dismay.. It gives peace of mind when 
we ask whether we are accepted before God. As 
we have seen, if we are to rely upon holding cor- 
rect doctrinal opinions, or upon compliance with 
the laws of God, we can never feel confidence 
that all is well. But when our discipleship is 
relying upon these saving facts of God's inter- 
vention in Christ, or relying upon Christ's work 
and Christ's self, then we can feel assurance ; 
since, though a salvation of our own never can, 
one effected by Him must, be sufficient. A pro- 
vision for our requirements made by Him must 
be one that we can trust implicitly. 



WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY* 39 

And Christianity so presented is a power to 
transform character. Some criticise this concep- 
tion of it as not providing an energy for that 
holiness which must be the end and aim of all 
religion. It is said that this piety of faith will 
render men indifferent to obedience because they 
will be led, by consistency, to think it needless. 
On the contrary, we may affirm that this piety 
of faith, when real, — and that is what we mean 
by it, — is the only form that has ever yet made 
any one holy : that is, made any one do the will 
of the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth. 
They whose piety has been only regard for rules 
have not been changed in character. Indeed 
they cannot be, for the character must first be 
changed, and that calls for some motive that will 
control the heart sufficiently to make it willing 
to obey. Whatever may seem to be the case, 
every true follower of Jesus has been so because 
to him Christianity was faith, first and foremost ; 
and no other form of it has ever rendered men 
better, whatever their professions may have been. 
The reason is that this confidence in Christ ren- 
ders him who has it lovingly grateful to this 
Saviour ; and grateful love is the strongest motive 
for good that exists. Man will do more for man 
under its impulse than under any other; and 
men have done whatever they have done for 
Christ because of it. It has made the saints of 
the Church. St. John said, " We love Him be- 
cause He first loved us ;" and St. Paul, "The love 



40 WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 

of Christ [to us] constraineth us." What else, 
than this grateful love for the redemptive deeds 
of Jesus has made men and women do and en- 
dure what believers have ? No amount of doc- 
trinal information given by Jesus, nor of regula- 
tions for conduct received from Him, could have 
moved the hearts that have been moved to that 
devotion and heroism and obedience in which 
His disciples have left behind all the zeal and 
bravery and loyalty of this world. 

So do we see the difference between this defi- 
nition of Christianity and the others, which are 
both so widely held, sometimes avowedly, some- 
times impliedly ; and how important it is to avoid 
all phraseology that gives any impression to the 
world which we would win, that our faith is iden- 
tified with either of them. It includes laws for 
life, of course ; it includes doctrines, of course ; 
its object is the regeneration of character, its im- 
plication, the knowledge of mysterious things ; 
but it is, in itself, a system or series of redemp- 
tive facts which are included in the one great 
fact of Jesus Christ being the Mediator and Sav- 
iour of the world. Apprehend clearly that thus 
alone can Christianity be what we want and so 
worth cherishing, a gospel to comfort and trans- 
form the weary and the sinful children of men. 

We are now in a position to see what is real 
unbelief, or essential skepticism, as to the gospel 
of Jesus Christ. It is not doubting any particu- 
lar tenet, or rejecting this or that doctrine, or 



WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 41 

differing from any authority upon this or that 
point. To do so may be regrettable, it may be 
dangerous, it may be wrong, it may be heresy ; 
yet it is not necessarily the denial of Christian- 
ity itself. That is denying, or questioning, that 
Jesus is, or does, what it has claimed that He is 
and does for man ; it is refusing to accept Him 
and His work as the true relief for human needs ; 
it is saying that this gospel of facts is not true. 
He who believes these things assents to the 
Church's message. He who relies upon them is 
a believer. It is only he who does not this that 
is a skeptic ; only he who controverts these facts 
is an infidel. This should be urged more and 
more, and both friends and foes must be made to 
see that to attack Christianity in its essence they 
must deal with this issue ; that assaulting the 
Church's message as formulated in her creed is, 
and nothing else is, assaulting the citadel and 
dangerous to the Christian position. 

And here we see the peril of a new form of 
unbelief held by many pious and godly men, and 
by men of great spiritual elevation. They tell 
us that Christianity can be rendered independent 
of the historical element in it ; that we can and 
must so present it as to render it a help to men, 
without requiring belief in events so difficult 
to verify as the occurrences of centuries ago. 
Now, there are some who may find light and 
comfort in the gospel thus conceived of, in 
thoughts of the love of God and His present care 



42 WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 

and the hope of eternal life, without connecting 
them with actual transactions ; but it is because 
they have been nurtured in the old form of the 
faith, and know that such precious facts are true 
because they are displayed in the work of the 
Saviour. Apart therefrom they are pure specu- 
lations, beautiful guesses ; perhaps true, but not 
such actualities as we can rest upon in storms of 
sorrow or of temptation. None have ever be- 
lieved in them who have not learned them from 
the incidents of Christ's work. There is no rea- 
son to believe in God's mercy, or a Father's care, 
or the power of resurrection, or the Spirit's as- 
sistance, except as we learn them from Jesus ; 
and they that use these facts for their comfort 
are, whatever they say, using a light that He 
kindled when He was on earth, and that has been 
kindled from no other source. So, beware of 
this high-minded and plausibly commended at- 
tempt to render our faith independent of occur- 
rences in Palestine long ago. It may avert some 
difficulties, but it creates others that are vastly 
more serious. It is taking just the same position, 
only in a far more extreme way, as that assumed 
by those who tell us that Christianity is a set of 
theological propositions, and strange to say, it is 
done by the last men of whom we should expect 
it, men who have been opponents of dogmatic 
religion. It is also eviscerating our religion of 
all that makes it a gospel to our brethren and 
sisters in this world, who can only find comfort 



WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY! 43 

in real facts that bring to them relief. It is ren- 
dering the transforming good news a series of 
abstract truths, for which we have no sufficient 
certitude, and which never could affect a charac- 
ter, or touch a heart not already softened. There 
are, as we shall see, satisfactory proofs of the his- 
torical reality of the facts in question, though 
they happened two thousand years ago ; but be 
this as difficult as it may, it is better to cling to 
the Christianity of facts than to take up with a 
form of it which has no certainty, is essential 
unbelief of what Jesus sent His apostles to pro- 
claim, essential unbelief in Himself, and though it 
may retain the semblance and much of the value 
of Christianity in the generation that adopts it, 
will have neither in the next one, which will con- 
sistently follow it out. 

But how about the institutions of Christianity, 
its holy days, its ministry, its ordinances, above 
all, its sacraments ? These things are undoubt- 
edly so prominent in our system that they must 
be included in any definition of it, and place must 
be found for their true estimate. Alas ! as with 
so many other things, these externals have been 
but too generally the subject of mistaken valua- 
tion, leading to divisions about matters on which, 
if anywhere, there should be union and fellow- 
ship. We know how they have been exaggerated 
in their importance, and used for intolerable pur- 
poses, for official aggrandizement and spiritual 
despotism, for the excitement of fanaticism, the 



44 WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 

soothing of conscience, the fostering of a formal 
piety. It is no wonder that there has come at 
times a reaction against them and a teaching that 
they are of no real value, not essential to Chris- 
tianity. This is the tendency in the air to-day. 
It is called spiritual religion. The minimization 
of them is considered an advance in real piety. 
The one thing to be aimed at in growth in grace 
is to be independent of them. Then comes their 
neglect, and a reluctance to urge them. It is 
said to be needless to go to church. Sacramental 
observance is outgrown, and the organization of 
the Church regarded as of no importance and of 
no authority. 

But let us not be carried away by any such 
plausible language, nor intimidated by any abuse 
of the institutions of our faith, so that we fail to 
see just what they are worth. If Christianity is 
a body of facts in the work of Jesus Christ, to be 
reposed upon in faith for the comforting and the 
transforming of life, then their office is to in- 
crease and to render more controlling that reli- 
ance upon Him who, by these facts, has made 
provision for a world's needs. What is said of 
the sacraments in the Articles of our Church is 
true of them all, " By them God doth not only 
quicken but also strengthen and confirm our faith 
in Him." They are not to be used for what^ 
might be their function under different concep- 
tions of our relation to Christ ; that is, they are 
not to teach theology, nor to impress lessons of 



WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 45 

ethics, as if either of these were His message 
to mankind. That they have been often so em- 
ployed, is well known ; and the Church has been 
made to serve exclusively as a school of morals 
or of doctrine. That such should be the results 
of its work is true, but such is not its immediate 
task, which is to increase the faith, to intensify 
the trust, of the children of men in their Lord 
and Saviour. This faith produces holier living, 
more unselfish conduct, and fuller views of truth : 
things that come in no other way, and cannot by 
any zeal or any eloquence be produced in human 
hearts without it. 

That these external features have done this 
work is written in large letters on the page of 
history. It is they that have handed on from age 
to age the redemptive achievements of Christ, 
and deepened that faith which has been the 
source of the consolation and sanctification of a 
multitude whom no man can number. Even in 
their abuse, even when in the hands of unworthy 
men, they have been " means of grace," the 
means whereby the gospel has been brought 
home and rendered a power for good to those 
whom they have reached. There can be no per- 
petuation of Christianity without them, nor has 
piety been sustained in their absence. The re- 
sult of neglecting, or dispensing with them, has 
been the fading away of Christian faith and 
Christian living in the communities or the indi- 
viduals that have tried it, however high the aims 



46 WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY 7 

or devout the motives that prompted them. This 
is the reason why we insist upon them so strenu- 
ously, to the frequent surprise of brethren about 
us ; why we cannot recognize as normal any 
Christianity that treats ancient ordinances, ven- 
erable ways of apostolic precedent, or holy sacra- 
ments, as matters of indifference. The whole 
efficiency of the gospel is bound up with them, 
and souls will starve without them. At the same 
time, we must never regard them as valuable save 
for the one end of promoting faith in Christ and 
His salvation, of bringing about closer relations 
with Him ; having, indeed, as their objects, purer 
thinking and more unselfish living, but through 
the awakening of that grateful love, which faith 
engenders, and which both opens the eyes to 
spiritual truth and strengthens the will to the 
following of Jesus. 

If Christianity be what we have said, some 
important inferences will be seen to follow. One 
is the way in which it must be preached. If it 
be a gospel of soul-comforting and soul-redeem- 
ing facts, then we are to address men on the 
basis of their needs, with the feeling that in this 
world they have great wants for which we have 
relief to bring them. What people want for 
real life is real facts, things achieved for them ; 
and a true ministry is to give them those facts 
as they are found in Christ. It must be the 
Church's sleepless endeavor to urge these reali- 
ties upon them as what their experiences call 






WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 47 

for ; and to show how they satisfy their necessi- 
ties. Therein lies the attractiveness of Jesus. 
Some tells us that this consists in the beauty of 
His character, others in the light He gives to 
our ignorance, others in His faultless ideals for 
life. These are all true, but that which attracts 
men and women to Him, the magnetic power 
that has drawn the millions to Him, is something 
else : it is His being that for which in their sad- 
nesses and weaknesses they long, " the light of 
life;" that for which the saint of old cried out 
when he said, " Lead me to the rock that is 
higher than I." Herein lies our warrant for be- 
lieving in His triumphs. That will receive men's 
allegiance which helps them. On this basis, noth- 
ing but this gospel has any chance of supremacy 
in coming years. Philosophy cannot expect it. 
Centuries of effort have only made its insuffi- 
ciency pitiably evident. Old religions tell of 
disappointed hopes in many a despairing land. 
New ones have no charm save for the erratic, no 
value save to dreamers. The future belongs to 
Christ, because He has what men want, and they 
will take it at His hands as soon as they find this 
out. Consequently each church, each body of 
Christians, may expect a share in the furthering 
of that triumph in measure, only as it makes 
known " the riches of mercy that are in Christ 
Jesus our Lord," the things done in His gospel 
for a race that could do nothing for itself. With- 
out this, no prestige of ancient lineage, no pos- 



48 WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 

session of venerable claims, no record of other 
days, no numbers can secure a share. Nothing 
tells with a needy race but ministering the provi- 
sion for their needs. To this ministration alone 
they will gather, as there alone they should. 

How then do we explain it that so many do 
not heed the Church's message ? It may be due 
to an unawakened sense of need. Those whose 
religious cravings are not alive, or who have 
been strangers to vicissitude and softening ex- 
periences, those who are hardened or frivolous, 
may not be expected to listen to an offer of re- 
demption. They that are whole, or think them- 
selves so, need not a physician, but they that are 
sick. In such cases, there need be no surprise 
at indifference. They must first be made to ask 
before they can receive, to feel their wants be- 
fore they can accept an offer of relief. We can 
only wait hopefully for the Providence of God 
and for His Spirit, to render such willing to 
hold out their hands for the bread of life, willing 
in penitence to cast themselves upon Christ and 
rest on His salvation. 

But this will not account for all cases of indif- 
ference, nor for so many as some may say. It 
were flattering our own souls to assume that, 
whenever pews are empty or words are vain, the 
fault is in those who listen, or whom we would 
reach. There is more seriousness than many a 
clergyman realizes among men and women with 
whom he mingles too little. There is much less 



WIT A T IS CHRIS 71 A ATI TV ? 49 

rebellion against truth and much less self-suffi- 
ciency than are sometimes charged. If one go 
about among his fellows in a sympathetic and 
brotherly way, he will find, to his increasing sur- 
prise, that many a man, of whom he had not 
thought it, has sober moments, and soul-hunger 
for what this world cannot give. The rejection 
of Christianity by such is due to something else 
than hardness of heart. There are business 
men and worldly women who would truthfully re- 
pudiate the charge of repelling the will of God, 
ignoring help and salvation, but who would scorn 
the narrow ecclesiastic who says that not heed- 
ing his words means refusing the light of the 
gospel. Their condition is like that of the sail- 
ors on the vessel that once found its supply of 
fresh water exhausted, when apparently becalmed 
on the wide sea. Day after day it drifted, and 
the agonies of thirst increased. Another vessel 
hove in sight at length, and the sufferers sig- 
naled " Give us water ! We are dying of thirst." 
To their amazement, back came an answering 
signal, "Dip it up ! " Again they made their ap- 
peal, and again they read the seemingly mocking 
response in the flags of the distant bark. At 
length, one man, thinking it might not have been 
a mockery, did dip some water from the ocean 
and found it fresh and sweet. Then they saw 
that they were in the mouth of the mighty Ama- 
zon, and had been for days praying for what was 
all about them. So are there many in this world 



50 WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 

thirsting for refreshment and strength because 
they have not been made to see that it is all at 
hand ; ignoring the gospel of Christ, not because 
they are indifferent to it, but because they have 
not been shown how free it is, and how to draw 
upon its riches. That is, the unbelief of many 
can only be the fault of those who are sent to 
preach the good news. It should solemnize every 
church and every minister to think that, if some 
really thirsty soul, some earnest heart, does not 
rest upon the Saviour's work, it may be only be- 
cause He has not been properly made known to 
him. He is a brave man who dares to say, as 
some seem to say, that the responsibility of men 
and women for failure to profess acceptance of 
the Redeemer is to be measured by their indif- 
ference to his words. It must rest upon himself, 
perhaps, as often as upon them. He can only 
feel, the Church can only feel, readiness to meet 
the Lord, who will call us all to account, in meas- 
ure as we have faithfully and plainly set forth 
the good news of God's salvation in Christ. 
Where that is done, we can expect that men will 
accept it as surely as the hungry will accept food. 
To these considerations, which show why the 
indifference of so many does not prove that 
Christianity is not the true provision for human 
needs, we must add that there are many that 
find in it strength and peace who make no pro- 
fession of it ; that there are many more whose 
lives are brightened by it, whose characters are 



WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 5 I 

purified by it, than those whose names are re- 
corded in our parochial registers, or who seek 
the advice of clergymen. This may not be as it 
should be, yet Christ knows of a great multitude 
who secretly have enshrined Him in their hearts, 
who furtively rest on the facts that the Church 
was founded to proclaim. 

And this leads us to the definition of Chris- 
tianity with regard to the religions of the world ; 
a subject in respect to which there is not only 
much error taught that is due to unbelief, but 
also much confusion of thought on the part of 
those who claim to be believers, and who ought 
to know better. Careless or skeptical thinking 
leads both to denial of the value of missions and 
to such views of them as practically surrender 
the cause and the principle of the gospel. 

What are the religions of the world ? They 
vary very much in form, very much in the degree 
of their elevation or degradation of thought and 
life, yet they are all expressions of that univer- 
sal element in the human mind which we call 
religion, or a sense of dependence upon higher 
powers. Religion and piety, or holiness, while 
they ought to be the same, and are so regarded 
among us, are not the same in fact. Multitudes, 
indeed most men, look up to a God more or less 
unknown, and dread Him, without their lives 
being thereby influenced for good. There is 
goodness without religion, and religion without 
goodness, although so divorced neither is what it 



52 WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 

should be. The religions of different lands are 
the local expressions of a sense of dependence ; 
they are Teachings out after God, attempts to 
gain tokens of His disposition, endeavors to se- 
cure some response to the anxieties that weigh 
so heavily upon the hearts of all, wherever their 
abode. And, back of all is a sense of guilt, or of 
the deserved displeasure of the deity invoked. 
This is seen in the universality of sacrifice, and 
of laborious rites and painful penances, whereby 
the worshiper seeks to appease the wrath of the 
deity and avert his punishments. This may not 
be clearly felt by the offerer, there may be noth- 
ing left of it but some ancient custom that once 
expressed it, yet it is a feature of all the forms 
of religion in the world. In short, these religions 
are modes of worship. They are not faiths, as 
people sometimes call them, when speaking of 
the faith of Asia or of China. The worshiper 
has not any faith, does not believe in anything, 
has not any trust at all. What is wanted and 
sought after is something to lay hold of and to 
rely upon, in presence of the sorrows of earth, 
the reality of sin, the approach of death, the de- 
mands of justice. Their whole shape and tone 
show that, at the best, they are appeals, prayers, 
supplications, cries to God ; and, instead of there 
being any such thing as the Faith of Heathen- 
dom, the earnest heathen would give his all to 
have faith and gain the peace that it alone can 
give. 



WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 53 

Now, what is Christianity ? Is it one of these 
religions wherein men have formulated their 
Teachings out after God, expressed their specu- 
lations and guesses regarding what He is and 
what lies beyond the grave ? Some say that it is 
such ; that it is the highest result of the human 
search for truth, the flowering of the instinct of 
religion, the loftiest form of worship, the purest 
conception of things unseen, due chiefly to the 
teaching of Jesus. Some tell us He was the 
man who of all others has seen farthest into the 
spiritual realm, and so is the leader of the race 
in its approach to God ; but others, more consis- 
tently and more plausibly, tell us that He was 
such a leader for those who live in the lands that 
have come under His influence, and that Chris- 
tianity is only a set of speculations that are as 
human as any others, peculiarly suited to our 
circumstances. If this is so, missions are of 
doubtful propriety. Then let each people keep 
its own religion, for it may be presumed to be 
most fit for it, as the outcome of its own expe- 
riences and aspirations. Though ours be con- 
ceded to be best, yet if that is all, we may well 
shrink from disturbing old ways for its exten- 
sion, for it might lead to derangements and divi- 
sions and even sufferings, which would be too 
great a price to pay for the mere improvement 
of that which is good. If each land's religion is 
its own way of coming to God, then it suits it 
like a garment, and we should not try to replace 



54 WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 

it by our own. It were not worth the while to 
supplant a Buddha by a Jesus, if each is the 
teacher for his own people. 

But this assumption, that Christianity is that 
evolution of religious thought and activity with 
whose results we are favored, can only be made 
by those who are as ignorant of what it claims 
to be as of what it is. Christianity does not 
come to us in the shape of a human aspiration or 
effort after God, of an attempt to gain relief from 
Him. Christianity is not what man has taught 
to man, but what God has done for man in Jesus ; 
and what we mean by accepting it is placing 
faith in its good news of soul comforting and soul 
redeeming facts : a gospel from heaven, not an 
appeal from earth. This is seen not only in its 
creed, which affirms belief in revealing and sav- 
ing transactions achieved in our behalf, but also 
in all its inner life and all its external features. 
As to its creed, the real believer relies upon it, 
not as what man has invented in his loftiest re- 
ligious soarings, but as what the Father of us 
all has sent to us in Christ, and as what can be 
leaned upon as no results of human thinking 
ever can be ; for, in presence of eternal and di- 
vine facts, the sublimest speculation excels but 
little in certainty, perhaps not at all, the prat- 
tlings of infancy. As to its observances, the key- 
note of its worship is not, like human worship, 
supplication and appeal, but it is glad thanksgiv- 
ing. Its hymns are not like those of the Vedas, 



WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 55 

only lofty adoration at the best : they are out- 
pourings of joy for glad tidings from beyond the 
veil of the unseen. Its central, one obligatory 
rite, is indeed a sacrifice, but a sacrifice of 
thanksgiving, a eucharist of gratitude, not an 
offering to propitiate. 

Everything that represents it shows, then, that 
Christianity is something essentially different 
from the religions of the world, whether the an- 
cient ones of pagan lands, or the newer ones de- 
vised to satisfy the religious instinct in lands we 
call Christian. It claims to be that for which 
they ask, the result for which they labor, the re- 
sponse of God to the world's wants, the voice out 
of the inaccessible world for which human hearts 
do crave. Instead of being one of them, it is 
not a religion at all. That is a misnomer : for it 
is in itself a revelation, in its adherents a faith, 
or the reverse of a religion. It is not a way to 
seek to please God, but a gospel from a God who 
is already pleased, for our comfort and our guid- 
ance. Its membership means, not asking, but 
receiving. Its people's hands are held out to 
God : yet not to supplicate His mercy, but to 
take the bounty that His mercy gives. 

If it is the diametrical opposite of what has 
been meant or expressed in the religions of the 
world, then it is inconsistency for any one who 
calls himself a Christian, it is infidelity, to class 
it among them, or in any way to make it differ- 
ent in degree only and not in kind. And we see 



56 WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 

a real infidelity in even the frequently heard ex- 
pression, "the religion of Jesus." Whatever 
may be intended, that phrase implies, and is often 
meant to imply, that Christianity is a system of 
worship which He established and which should 
supersede all others, as a higher approach to 
God ; that He has taught us, not merely as a 
man, but even it may be said as the Son of God, 
how to draw near to our Father in Heaven. 
This is true undoubtedly, in one sense. In 
Christianity is the only true and acceptable hom- 
age rendered, the only true light possessed. But 
this is not true as a definition of the mission of 
Christ and of what He came to found on earth. 
He did not come to show us how properly to call 
upon God, nor how to serve Him acceptably. 
He came to bring God to us, to found a Church, 
not of those who serve God, but of those who 
love Him, prompted not by a sense of needs un- 
satisfied, but by a sense of blessings received. 
Its piety is the piety of praise, not the piety of 
supplicating prayer. 

Therefore, to him who believes in this gospel 
there can be no question of the duty to spread it 
in every land. For it is what the heathen are 
really praying for, the light that they are crying 
for who sit in darkness ; that for which they plead, 
out of their lot of suffering, in all the religions of 
this world. And so, respect for old religious sys- 
tems, or lofty and generous efforts after new 
ones, instead of keeping us from urging upon the 



WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 57 

heathen our own faith, should do the reverse. 
The wider the cult, the more numerous its adher- 
ents, the greater the appeal that comes to us who 
have what they all seek in vain. The more ven- 
erable the altars, the more hoary the temples, the 
more ancient the groves, where earth's children 
worship, the more intense the claim upon us to 
give them that for which they have so long and 
so pleadingly waited. And the purer the dreams, 
the higher the aspirations of a people, the more 
direct is our duty to tell them of that gospel 
which can alone give the life and guidance that 
they crave. 

These, then, are the reasons for missions and 
for their hopefulness. Sometimes they are ad- 
vocated as the teaching of correcter doctrines or 
purer ethics ; and then they are, naturally, but 
love's labor lost. The heathen are not hunger- 
ing for such things. What they want is a power 
to rise to newness of life, a comfort for life's 
vicissitudes. They want this more than people 
here at home. If human needs call for a gospel, 
there are no such burdens on life here as rest on 
the life of heathendom. There is more suffering, 
more weariness, more despair, more degradation 
among them ; and consequently there is more 
religion, more praying, more self -mortification, 
more appeals to Heaven, than w T e see about us in 
our world. Take to them this Christianity as a 
gospel of facts regarding what has been done, 
what is doing, and what is yet to be done by 



58 WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 

Christ's work, and it will spread. With increas- 
ing rapidity, as the divine plans mature, they will 
come to this faith which is what they bitterly 
need. Deserting ancient shrines and immemo- 
rial rites, they will fall at the foot of the uplifted 
cross, the one availing altar ever raised on earth 
for human atonement. 

On the historic plain of Thebes, surrounded 
by the ruins of palaces and temples, that tell of 
departed greatness and vanished ambitions, there 
stands erect the statue of Memnon. It looks, as 
it has looked for ages, out towards the east whence 
comes the dawn, and it is said that they who 
dwell about it have been wont to hear at sunrise 
a note of music when the first rays of the new 
day come to bathe those wreck-strewn fields with 
light and beauty. So it is with the heathen world, 
the whole world that is yet without the Christ. 
Surrounded by the ruins of its hopes, saddened 
by ever present reminders of its failures, the van- 
ity of all endeavors to build for it a city which 
would give it rest, this race of ours is looking 
eagerly for a new and better day, looking with 
intenser yearning as each century comes on. It 
is a silent world, silent of praise. It has no heart 
to sing, no hope to tune its voice to joy. But, 
when the Sun of Righteousness rises upon it, with 
healing in His rays, then in measure as to it is 
brought the good news of the redemption that is 
in Jesus Christ, its silence will give place to song, 
its despair to expectation ; and from a race that, 



WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 59 

through its religions and its speculations vainly 
looked for God, will rise an anthem that will 
breathe forth the gladness of a heart at rest, of 
anxieties relieved, and of a hope born to die no 
more. 

Such, then, is our definition of Christianity and 
its consequences, the definition which the Church 
itself gives : a gospel of mercy in the person and 
work of the Son of God. Its life is a life of faith. 
Its stimulus is grateful love. Its power is that 
it meets human appeals for help. Its prospect is 
supremacy, because mankind will surely come to 
drink of its refreshing waters when 'wearied in 
the greatness of their way.' Cling to this con- 
ception. Let no influences delude you to accept 
any other, no eloquence confuse your apprehen- 
sion of it. Your life will be bright, your heart 
strong, your hope clear, your doubts removed, as 
day by day you live in the trustful discipleship 
of the One Saviour of the world. 

For there is no other. There are many voices 
abroad to-day that, perhaps in kindness, claim to 
preach good news to men, and too often with a 
zeal and a vigor that might put the Church to 
the blush. Art with its fair visions of an ideal 
realm, material progress with its promises of 
ease, education with its mental pleasures, science 
with its plans of social improvement, all say, 
"Come unto me, and I will give you rest." But 
apply the test that St. Martin used in his cell, as 
the legend tells us, when tempted by a false 



60 WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 

Christ. He was wont to pray daily for a vision 
of the Lord he loved so ardently, and one day 
there appeared, as he thus prayed, a person of 
majestic mien, in resplendent attire, girt with a 
golden girdle and wearing a jeweled crown. 
"Who art thou?" asked the saint. "lam the 
Lord whom thou hast asked to see. Behold me 
and adore," was the reply. Awestruck at the 
sight, and yet wishing to be sure that his homage 
would not be misplaced, the saint hesitated. " On 
thy knees, good Martin, if thou dost believe," said 
the figure that lighted up his lowly cell. Humbly, 
yet bravely, this wise man, who knew that pomp 
and state are not the decisive signs of the Son 
of God, replied : " Show me thy hands and thy 
side ! ' With a cry of rage and dismay the 
tempter vanished, for it was Lucifer personating 
the Saviour, who was thus exposed by a test he 
could not meet. 

So, when other claimants come to you for your 
allegiance, whether prophets of culture, or of 
learning, or of civilization, of old religions or of 
ambitious new ones, ask them too : " Show me 
thy hands and thy side ! Show me what you 
have done, or can do, for us needy children of a 
dying race." Then will they too be silenced and 
vanish in defeat. For only where there have 
been such achievements for mankind, such ben- 
efits conferred, as are these redeeming facts which 
the Church of Christ proclaims, can be given the 
faith that comforts and transforms. Poor, pitiable, 



WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 6 1 

helpless saviors are they all in presence of Him 
who came out of the infinite vastnesses to reveal 
to us our God ; who lived to set us " an example 
that we should follow in His steps " ; who died 
for our redemption on the bitter cross ; who rose 
again to open unto us the gates of the everlast- 
ing life; who ascended into heaven where He 
ever liveth to make intercession for us ; who sent 
the Holy Spirit to help our infirmities ; who is 
with His people unto the end of the world ; who 
will come again to bring about " the restitution 
of all things, which God hath spoken by the 
mouth of all His holy prophets since the world 
began." And this is the gospel which is preached 
unto you, the only message to this world which 
can be called good news. 



LECTURE III. 

WAS JESUS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY ? 

" The certainty of those things wherein thou hast been in- 
structed." — Luke i. 4. 

We have seen that Christianity is in its his- 
tory, and in its own definition by the universal 
creeds, a body of facts to be received and relied 
upon in faith, to the comforting and transform- 
ing of life. 

But are the facts in question actual ? Are not 
the objections brought by opponents sufficient 
to warrant hesitation in relying upon things 
which occurred so long ago ? Is there not so 
much difficulty about this, that we may, at best, 
only find comfort in the ideas involved, and, as 
some do and have done, abstain from making all 
turn upon actual events ? 

This brings us to the matter of the so-called 
Evidences of Christianity, which form a vast 
literature, representing great labor and great 
learning. But there are some leading disadvan- 
tages attaching as a rule to these works. One 
is that they deal with issues that are not now 
in controversy. The assaults on our faith vary 
from age to age, and a defense that is efficient 
at one time does not meet new foes who attack 



WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 63 

at a different point. This is the case with the 
chief works of the last century, when an antag- 
onism peculiarly active was met by a display of 
erudition and power such as has had no superior, 
and was fully adequate at the time. Especially 
is this the case with that great book, Butler's 
Analogy. Unanswerable by those to whom it 
was addressed, it gives little trouble to the unbe- 
lief that is most vigorous to-day. Substantially, 
its position is that there are no difficulties in 
Christianity which are not also in natural reli- 
gion. This is true, and it replied effectively to 
those who once advocated such a religion, or 
deism, as it was called. But now the trouble is 
that unbelief admits the analogy, and gives up 
Christianity and deism as equally unacceptable. 
There has been a recent attempt to revive this 
latter in a widely read book, but it is a position 
that few earnest thinkers will accept, for Butler 
has forever rendered it untenable, as having all 
the difficulties of the gospel without its value. 
So, this line of argument is as apt to make athe- 
ists as to make believers, in the present state 
of the controversy ; and, although a book that 
can never be obsolete on account of its mine of 
wisdom and its unsurpassed genius, yet as a 
weapon for our use, Butler's Analogy is not the 
argument that is needed now. 

Another difficulty attaching to the apologetics 
of the past is that they are too erudite, require 
too much of either personal learning or accep- 



64 WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 

tance of the statements of others, for ordinary 
use. This marks signally the great work of 
Paley. It appeals only to scholars. It makes 
all the argument for Christianity turn upon the 
genuineness of the New Testament narratives. 
This argument is, as we believe, good for those 
who can pursue it, but it requires especial train- 
ing and opportunity to verify its force. Few 
clergymen, and still fewer laymen, have the nec- 
essary attainments in languages to read, and in 
history to appreciate, the ancient documents upon 
which the argument is virtually based, or even 
the opportunity to see them. Therefore, at the 
best, we have to come to this, that the proof of 
the New Testament authenticity rests, for all but 
a few, upon the statements of other people. 
This is a strong position, yet it is not always 
satisfactory to make such important issues turn 
upon the correctness of the assertions of schol- 
ars. It is the same with a stronger argument, 
the admissions of the enemy. It is a curious 
and little known fact, that learned unbelievers 
now generally admit all we claim for the Gospels 
and for St. Paul's great Epistles. This may save 
us a retort, and give some of us great confidence ; 
but this also is not satisfactory to many minds. 
The reply may be made that the New Testament 
writers either were deceivers or deceived, or that 
a critical inquirer into the verities of our faith 
wants more than the admissions of foes or the 
testimonies of friends. He wants evidence that 



WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY'! 6$ 

he himself can weigh, who is not qualified for a 
learned and laborious discussion. Therefore we 
need, and the laity should have, reasons for be- 
lief which are more direct and immediate, and 
that do not turn upon even the authenticity of 
the New Testament. For, as we shall see when 
we speak of the Bible, our faith does not rest 
upon the volume itself, but only upon what it 
contains. Yet we are so familiar with it, and 
with the perusal of the Christian facts as therein 
preserved, that we are apt to imagine that we get 
the facts only from it, and are entirely dependent 
upon it. But this is clearly not so. Christianity 
comes to us especially through the Church, but 
also in the very life of the world and its litera- 
ture, and is forced upon our attention apart from 
any perusal of the Scriptures. 

Now, can we construct an argument that every 
sensible man or woman can follow, without hav- 
ing to know history and peruse ancient manu- 
scripts, or without having to meet, if we argue 
from the New Testament, the reply that we must 
first prove it to be trustworthy ? We think we 
can ; and each thinking man believes the gospel 
just because of such arguments, whether it is 
realized or not. To deny this is like saying that 
a man cannot be sure of the Declaration of In- 
dependence of 1776, without reading the original 
document ; or that one cannot argue for his own 
birth without showing the registry of its occur- 
rence, or its entry in the family records. Let us 
seek to construct such an argument. 



66 WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 

It seems strange to have to prove that Chris- 
tianity is true, at this date and in this land ; 
strange that any should question it or deny it. 
Think what it has done. It has done the work 
of a gospel. Then it must be true, we should 
think ; for a medicine that heals a disease must 
be the right one. What we need is a faith that 
can comfort hearts and redeem character. Wher- 
ever that comes from, it is what we want, and 
we should, we must, and we will accept it. If 
Christianity is not true, and does not come from 
God, we must then accept it as from some other 
source that is found to be kinder than God. 
Then we must look up to that source, give thanks 
to it, and pray to it. It may be human or angelic, 
as we are told ; then the man or angel that has 
given us this gospel is to be our God ; since what 
we mean by God is a being who can and will pro- 
vide for our needs and relieve our ills. We must, 
we should, adore and trust the giver of such a 
real and actual redemption. But this shows how 
absurd it is to affirm that Christianity is not the 
gift of God. He that can bestow such a bless- 
ing as the gospel has been to man and can re- 
spond to our wants so adequately must be one 
who loves and pities us ; and there is no one of 
whom that can be said but " the Father of 
Lights," from whom cometh every good and 
every perfect gift. 

But we must come to a closer issue, it is 
frankly admitted. All turns upon the reality of 



WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 67 

Jesus Christ, as a person who lived, taught, suf- 
fered, died, and rose again, nearly nineteen hun- 
dred years ago. We must meet the challenge 
to show our reasons for placing our confidence 
in Him, and the facts that are connected with 
Him, and that have no reality apart from His 
own. This is the essence of the controversy, 
the citadel to be defended. All goes with it. 
Everything that we call Christian, and that leads 
us to a different life and a different belief from 
those of the heathen, stands or falls with it. If 
it is not provable, our beliefs are dreams at best, 
our characters are moulded by mere specula- 
tions ; our homes, our civilization, our ethics, are 
perhaps more enjoyable than those of China, 
but no more certainly in accordance with right 
and truth. If this historical reality is accepted 
as a rule of life and trust, a man is so far a 
Christian, whatever else he has given up or re- 
jected. If not, he may be pious and devout, and 
living on the plane to which Christianity has 
raised him, but he is not a Christian. That name, 
so fraught with associations, must not be used 
save for what it was meant to express, for it is 
recorded of the disciples of Jesus Christ that 
they "were called Christians first in Antioch." 

One argument for the actuality of the story 
of Christ is, that it was held and believed by 
those who lived at the time, as is seen by count- 
less proofs of varied sorts. This is not saying 
that it is proved by the New Testament, for we 



68 WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 

know it apart from any reference to that volume. 
The New Testament proves it also ; for put it as 
late as any one may wish, it still shows at least 
that such was the belief at a time when peo- 
ple could know the truth in the premises. But 
what is now meant is that other writings, and 
also many a memorial and relic, show that, within 
a short period of the alleged date of the career 
of Jesus, there was a Church that held the same 
story that we have, and had been founded for 
the very purpose of spreading it. 

But it will be replied, that is going back to an- 
tiquity. Give us an argument that we can weigh, 
something that does not take us so far into the 
past. What evidence is there now for the his- 
torical reality of Jesus Christ ? 

One is embarrassed by such a request, but not 
because it is difficult to reply in the sense that 
some seem to imagine. I once had a similar 
question put to me that caused a similar embar- 
rassment. It was when visiting the Cathedral of 
Aix la Chapelle, which was built by Charlemagne, 
is full of souvenirs of him, contains many relics, 
and is his tomb. A fellow -citizen joined our 
party to avail himself of our interpretation of the 
information of the German sacristan who accom- 
panied us. He was evidently impressed by the 
succession of memorials of the great emperor, 
the crown, the bones, the sceptre, the sword, and 
other objects there preserved, but as evidently 
puzzled by his lack of historical acquaintance 



WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 69 

with the personage referred to. He saw that 
this was some eminent man of whom he ought to 
know, but did not. At length, when his curios- 
ity and ignorance had been long reducing him to 
misery, he came to that slab in the floor which it 
thrills one to stand on, with its simple inscription, 
" Carolo Magno." Here our friend, unable to 
keep silence any longer, began to inquire : " This 
person lived some time ago, did he not ? " I 
replied in the affirmative. " How long ago ? A 
hundred years ? " he asked again. " More than 
that," I answered, " more than a thousand years 
ago." With a look of incredulity, which showed 
that he regarded me as of doubtful veracity, he 
retorted : " How do you know that anything is 
true of a man who lived so long ago?" What 
could I do ? Where could I begin ? I could 
only have said, had I time and had he been dis- 
posed to listen, " The evidence is all around you, 
in this church, this town, this nation. All mod- 
ern Europe proves it." This is just the diffi- 
culty that comes up when we would prove the 
historical reality of Christ. One does not know 
how to begin, what to point to, out of all about 
us that shows it. The modern world, the world 
of to-day, betokens that Jesus actually lived and 
wrought as we hold. Its civilization, its litera- 
ture, are full of memorials of His existence ; all 
involve His teaching, and living, and dying, and 
rising again, centuries ago. There is no such 
evidence for Charlemagne, or for Caesar, as there 



JO WAS CHRIST AM HISTORICAL REALITY? 

is for Him, in effects produced or in memorials 
that remain. 

But let us, out of all these, select some palpable 
facts and features, some of which will have force 
with one person, some with another, and none of 
which can be accounted for, save by admitting 
not only that Jesus was historically real, but that 
He was what Christians hold Him to be, and 
what makes them Christians. It is only because 
they are all such familiar things that their force 
and bearing are not always felt. 

Take, for instance, the religious condition of 
the world. Note especially our idea of God. We 
have a common conception of Him, as being 
good, merciful, personal, directing and caring for 
the world. This is the idea that is in all minds 
about us, as to what the term God signifies. 
Even they who may not concede that He is, con- 
cede that, if He is, such is the necessary concep- 
tion of Him ; and the unbelief of many is found 
to be due to the feeling that, since they do not 
find any revelation of such a God, we have no 
revelation at all. So firmly rooted is it that this 
is the true idea of God, that, if any one, or any 
religious teacher, should ascribe to Him an ac- 
tion inconsistent therewith, he would be rebuked 
even by the infidel orator. The basis of his as- 
sault upon this or that doctrine which he sup- 
poses to be Christian teaching is its alleged con- 
flict with this very postulate, which must be as- 
sumed. Now, whence came this idea of God, so 



WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? J I 

known to be true, and so at the basis of popular 
thinking, so really at the foundation of all peace 
and trust, that no one disputes it ? 

Do you say that man has made it ? That it 
has been evolved out of the higher thinking of 
our ancestors ? Then, why has it not been 
evolved anywhere else than in Christian lands, 
where alone it is known ? No religions nor phi- 
losophies of heathendom ever reached it. The 
results obtained by human thought, of higher 
power and longer duration than our own, upon 
the subject of God, show that man cannot pro- 
duce this idea of Him. Yet it is in the very air 
about us, and we know it is the true one : not an 
idea which is good for us, as another may be 
good for Asia, but an absolute idea, the only one 
that is to be tolerated as allowable. Now, how 
did it come to us ? If not conceivable that our 
mind evolved it, because all the rest of the human 
race has, in its evolution, reached no such con- 
clusion, then we can only account for it, as Chris- 
tianity claims, by its having been given to the 
race by One who did not learn it from the race, 
even the man Jesus Christ. Think of this, and 
you will see that it shows that such a thing must 
have happened as the life and career of Jesus to 
explain the knowledge that you have of your 
Heavenly Father. 

This is equally true of other beliefs that we 
possess, such as, for instance, that of personal 
immortality ; or, again, of our standards of right 



72 WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 

and wrong. These are our common heritage, 
the conviction of those who are, as well as of 
those who are not, Christians ; and they cannot 
be accounted for, as the peculiar possessions of 
Christian lands alone, save upon the theory that 
those lands have received, as others have not, 
the teachings of one who made them known, as 
Jesus is alleged to have done. 

But this opens up a vast field of argument, 
even that based upon what has been done by 
Christianity. This is obviously a subject too 
great to be more than indicated in a general 
way ; yet it may be worth while to point out 
some weighty facts that bear upon our present 
argument. 

Think what it has done for the mental prog- 
ress of man. As Balzac said, " Every thinking 
man has to march under the banner of Christ. 
He alone has consecrated the triumph of mind 
over matter. He alone has revealed the inter- 
mediate world that separates us from God." 
Consider the literature of Christian lands, so 
much loftier than that of others ; their art, that 
is, the only art that has any life in it ; their phi- 
losophizing, so free from absurdities that char- 
acterize all other thinking. Think of its effects 
upon science. It is, in fact, the mother of 
science. There is none where it is unknown. 
We have to take our conquests of recent date to 
lands far older in civilization and more gifted by 
nature with mental endowments. The reason is 



WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 73 

that, in the sphere of Christianity alone is there 
any such consciousness of his own powers and 
possibilities, or any such freedom from supersti- 
tious fears of nature, that man aspires, or is not 
afraid, to investigate. They who have not re- 
ceived the deliverance from despair and delu- 
sions with which Christianity emancipates the 
peoples that have received it never study nature. 
Even in its degraded forms, Christendom is freer 
than the highest paganism from what prevents 
the advance of knowledge ; and the most igno- 
rant and superstitious peasant of Italy rejects, as 
plainly untenable, what the most intelligent Hin- 
doo never questions, or believes as matters of 
course, what the latter never dreams of as pos- 
sible. 

Consider what it has done for the State. There 
is as yet no actually Christian state, it is true, in 
the sense of its being supremely controlled by 
Christ, yet all are immensely affected by it in 
legislation, in jurisprudence, in peace, and in 
war. The most backward land of Europe is very 
different from the most advanced in Asia, and 
has features in its life that would be an improve- 
ment upon the best specimens of heathendom. 
Europe and America are shaped and moulded, in 
all that constitutes their excellence, simply by 
the influence of Christianity. 

Consider the mark it has made upon the home. 
How different are the homes of Christendom 
from those of heathendom ! The latter are so 



74 WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 

horrible that we shudder at the idea of being 
condemned to dwell in them, with their lust, 
their cruelty, their absence of that love and con- 
fidence that make our own so dear. And they 
are such, chiefly because of the effects of Chris- 
tianity upon the condition of woman. Some 
may say that it has not raised her. They who 
tell us this, especially women who say so, ought 
to be afforded the opportunity to go where they 
can have womanhood without it, and thus prac- 
tically find out what it has done to make her 
respected and other than a slave or a toy. Far 
more fond are the homes, far more honored are 
the women, of the least enlightened Christian 
land. This is a commonplace, and so need not 
be dwelt upon. Some tell us that our faith has 
not raised woman. So does a reverend gentle- 
man in Richmond also tell us in this nineteenth 
century that the earth does not go round the sun. 

Once more, consider the effects of Christianity 
upon the condition and treatment of the unfor- 
tunate. The poor, the sick, the helpless, the 
orphans, the insane, the weak, the blind, the 
dumb, are blessed by it ; their lot is made very 
different from what it is elsewhere. Nowhere 
more than in this sphere, can we trace effects, 
not more beneficent than direct, to its influence. 

Now there are two uses of this observation of 
the effects of Christianity. One is that in so 
richly blessing the world it is shown to be from 
God, and the true provision for human needs. 



WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? ?$ 

But this is not the use that is now to be made of 
it. For it also serves, for our present purpose, 
as an argument for the historical reality of Jesus 
Christ, at the time alleged by the Church. 

Suppose that from some point of elevation 
you saw the ends of a number of straight but 
diverging roads coming out of the far distance. 
You could easily tell where, and how far away, 
they had diverged from a common point of de- 
parture. But suppose that, in place of this num- 
ber of roads, there were so many streams of 
water, or so many beams of light, or so many 
sounds of music. Then you could not only tell 
by simple calculation how far away beyond your 
vision lay that unseen point of divergence, but 
you could also tell what would be found there, 
the size and quality of the fountain, or the bril- 
liancy and nature of the luminary or the charac- 
ter and kind of the cause of the sounds, as the 
case might be. 

So is it with these present observable effects 
of Christianity. They point back beyond our 
sight, into the past ages of history. But we can 
follow them up, and measure the law of their 
convergence as plainly as we can that of the 
streams, or of the rays, or of the sounds. And 
the result is that they all meet, about nineteen 
hundred years ago, in a common origin, in the 
land that we call Holy. They all go back to it, 
as the one centre whence they started to spread 
over the world, where they now are seen and felt. 



J6 WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 

But this is not all. We can tell what would be 
found there, could we reverse the course of his- 
tory, or journey back up the ages that are gone. 
We find that, no less certainly than the streams 
would lead us to a copious and similar fountain, 
or the beams of light to an adequate and like 
constituted source of illumination, or the strains 
of music to a sufficient and an equally sweet in- 
strument, would these effects of Christianity 
lead back to a person and a life like those of 
Jesus Christ, from whom alone could come the 
refreshing rivers that are gladdening the hearts 
of men, the brightness that is lighting them, 
the harmonies that are cheering them, in widely 
separated lands to-day. 

And now we see the answer to a popular fal- 
lacy regarding the evidences both for Christ's 
historical existence and for His divine mission. 
Many really imagine that we are at a disadvan- 
tage now, as compared with those who lived in 
ages that are gone, and that each succeeding cen- 
tury renders the historical element in Christian- 
ity more difficult of verification. Upon this is 
based that position which has been referred to, 
that it is essential to our cause to lay little stress 
upon that element. But all this is precisely the 
reverse of the fact. Succeeding ages render 
Christ's mission and career more palpably cer- 
tain, and not less, because they bring forth more 
and more results that can only be attributed to 
Him. We have far more reason to believe that 



WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? JJ 

He existed than they who lived a thousand years 
ago ; and much more reason to believe Him to 
be the world's Redeemer than those who saw 
and heard Him in His lifetime ; for we see, as 
none before us have seen, what He can do and 
has done for man. So will those who come after 
us, though farther away from Bethlehem and 
Calvary, yet see more of that light which floods 
a world and has no other source than Jesus ; and 
so will they know as we cannot the fullness of 
the blessing that was in Him. 

But let us take another line of argument from 
the character of Christ. 

When the name of Jesus is named it awakens 
a distinct conception of a perfect character. We 
all mean thereby a picture that exists in our 
minds, which is the world's supreme possession, 
the theme of the poet, the effort of the artist, 
the model of the teacher, the ideal of the Chris- 
tian. 

Now, note some features of this character, as- 
sociated with the name of Jesus Christ. 

It is faultless. Unbelievers no less than dis- 
ciples agree that Jesus was perfect ; perfect in 
joy, perfect in suffering, perfect in His relations 
with all who met Him and with whom He had to 
do. We know that, in any conceivable emer- 
gency, He would have acted as He did in those 
that are recorded. That is, His character, and 
His alone, is a model. He alone is copiable. We 
hold Him up to our children and only ask that 



yS WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 

they may imitate Him. We know for ourselves 
that we should need no more, if we could be 
such as He was in this world. When we would 
seek to influence others about us, we endeavor to 
arouse this same desire in them, and the effort 
to better men is but to render them like Him, 
as sufficient to regenerate society and to trans- 
form the world. 

Again, it is a catholic model of character. 
There is no one, man, woman, or child who can- 
not learn of Him and would not be better for 
doing so. And this is true of no one else. No 
actual life, if this is supposed not to be such, can 
be made a model. All others have their limita- 
tions as to age or locality ; even if actually copi- 
able in any one place or time, they would not 
be sufficient as universal ideals. The Buddhist 
could not ask to be only like his Sakya Muni ; 
it would not be a sufficient light for Asia. We 
know that neither he nor any other teacher 
would suffice as a guide in the infinite variations 
of human experience. Yet this is the case with 
this Jesus. Whether high or low, rich or poor, 
on island or on continent, in dark or in brilliant 
ages, the imitation of Christ is always feasible, 
and a source of betterment and comfort. There 
are many kinds of saints in the Christian calen- 
dar, saints of every clime and every age and 
every circumstance, yet they all are such because 
they learned of Him and copied in their lives the 
spirit of His own. 



WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? ?Q 

For, again, this conception of a perfect char- 
acter copiable by all, is found in all parts of 
Christendom. It is not confined to the more 
advanced Churches ; it is found undefined yet 
real in the most degraded, in those of Asia as 
in that of England. All call this Jesus Lord, 
and, however gropingly they walk, all press to- 
wards Him as the faultless One. These various 
Churches have been severed, without communi- 
cation, for ages ; sometimes hostile and antago- 
nistic, interested in finding weak points in each 
other, learning nothing from each other. Yet 
they all adore one Jesus, have the same model 
for conduct, possess this same treasure of a per- 
fect character as an example. 

Now, what is the origin of this universal idea 
of a Jesus, alone perfect, alone copiable by all 
the children of men ? Plainly there are only two 
alternatives. Either such a life was lived, of 
which we have the story, or else the whole is a 
fiction. Either Jesus was historically real, or 
this character is the invention of man in the cen- 
turies of the past. 

Was it possibly an invention ? Could human 
skill have constructed such a character ? To as- 
certain this is not very difficult, for we may know 
what man can do by what he has done. He has 
done a great deal in the way of depicting imag- 
inary as well as real characters. His highest in- 
tellectual work has perhaps been in this line. 
We know how much labor has been expended in 



80 WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 

biography, both in concealing the defects, and in 
heightening the virtues, of those whom the inter- 
est or affection of disciples or admirers has rep- 
resented as models for others to follow ; and also 
how men have eagerly sought out such lives as 
could be delineated for imitation. But, further, 
look at the mental power exercised in character 
painting in fiction, whether in the poem, the 
drama, the moral treatise, or the novel. Plato, 
Shakespeare, Scott, Corneille, are names that 
recall noble endeavors to give us ideals of hu- 
manity. Now, what is the result of all this, the 
work of giants ? It is that not one has given us 
a perfect character, or a catholic one, one so liv- 
ing and acting and speaking in varying expe- 
riences, that we can accept it as a sufficient 
ideal for our children, or for this wide world with 
its countless forms of sorrow, of weakness, and 
of imperfection. Or even if any such fictitious 
character were a model where the author dwelt, 
it would be unsuited to the nearest nation ; in- 
comprehensible, perhaps absurd, to whole realms 
of distant people. In the Walhalla of man's 
creations, as well as in that of his biographies, 
Jesus Christ has no place. Among such memo- 
rials or such fiction His isolation and their short- 
comings were but intensified. Thus, the percep- 
tion of what man has done, at the high-water 
mark of his genius, shows us what is the best he 
can do, and discloses the fact that he cannot in- 
vent a Christ, nor even develop a saint into a 



WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 8 1 

Jesus. Rousseau and Napoleon both said, long 
ago, the former out of a heart that was surely 
unfriendly enough to Christianity, that they knew 
man, and his capacities, and that the invention 
by him of such a character as Jesus would be a 
greater miracle than its reality. 

The fact is that he does not really mean it 
who says that this character has been invented. 
It is a flippant utterance upon which he has not 
reflected, or he would see that what it involves 
is impossible ; that it has no more weight as an 
argument than to say that, because man makes 
ice by machinery, or constructs a mill - dam in 
some river, the Mer de Glace or the Falls of 
Niagara may have been due to his skill. It is an 
assertion that carries weight only with those 
who are too ignorant to know, or too superficial 
to consider, the limitations of human capacity. 

And yet there are some who will actually have 
us believe, as reasonable men, that this picture, 
which is enshrined in Christendom, the beauty 
of which the human intellect despairs to equal 
in its fictions, and the saint to reproduce in his 
life, the copying of which is the only way to 
advance in grace of character, and which is the 
only source of inspiration for life, — they will have 
us believe, that this was the creation of some 
Jewish fishermen, in an age that was narrow and 
bigoted, who themselves had been trained in the 
most bigoted and narrow of its circumstances. 
This is too much to ask of us in days when we 
are expected to be critical and incredulous. 



82 WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 

But no, say some, it was the later creation of 
the Church : Christians made this character, by 
a more or less gradual process. But what made 
them Christians ? What made them such peo- 
ple as could evolve such an ideal out of their fer- 
tile minds ? There seems to be no reply but 
that a Christ must have first made Christians 
those who could invent a Christ ; and if Chris- 
tendom made this Jesus, why has it not made 
another ? Why, in all its literature, with all its 
advance since its lowly origin, has it not been 
able to give us some other fictitious life equally 
ideal ? Or why is it that the Church has not yet 
grown up to realize, in a single member, this an- 
cient fiction ; has never yet produced a real 
Christ in the strength of its maturity, if it could 
create an ideal Christ in the weakness of its in- 
fancy ? Why is it that the highest attainment 
of all its saints has been but the partial repro- 
duction of this story? Surely, there is no ex- 
planation of all this, if the Jesus of the Church 
was but the evolution of its early and ignorant 
days. There is no reason to expect any attain- 
ment of such an ideal in the future thought or 
life of Christendom ; still it were easier to be- 
lieve that Christendom might yet in its progress 
reach such a capacity than to believe that it pos- 
sessed it in its beginnings. 

So then, if the character of Jesus is not that 
of one who lived and died and left such a mem- 
ory, then the only alternative is the impossible 



WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 8$ 

one that it is an invention of men, and of such 
men as we have said. Either Christ made the 
Church or the Church made Christ. The latter 
is a supposition that exceeds the wildest credu- 
lity of superstition, surpasses the absurdity of 
the fairy tales that children in the nursery, or 
the peasants of ignorant lands, believe. In pres- 
ence of this character of Jesus, we can only say 
that it is due to a life once lived ; that we have 
a description of a person. Jesus Christ was an 
historical reality. 

Once more, let us see the evidence of things 
with which we are familiar, the Church and its 
institutions. This is an argument so conclusive 
that it is strange how any doubt can be raised as 
to the actuality of the person of Christ. It is 
like my friend's asking the evidence of the real- 
ity of Charles the Great in a structure built by 
him and rich in his memorials. It is like asking 
proof for the reality of William the Conqueror 
in presence of English history, or for the reality 
of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth, or of George 
Washington in our own land, or of Michael An- 
gelo in the Duomo of Florence. These things 
presuppose the persons, are their work, tell of 
them ; and so the Church is a monument, a fabric, 
that tells of Christ, and proclaims that it was 
originated for that purpose. No argument that 
can be urged, no evidence that can be adduced, 
whether documents, or books, or monuments of 
any other sort, is so conclusive as this, a society 



84 WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 

that sprang from His creation. That is, when 
the Church is pointed out to one who asks the 
reasons for believing that Jesus actually lived 
and died, and rose, his demanding documentary, 
or any other, proof besides, is like a man who 
lives in the new world that was discovered by 
Columbus, asking to see documents to prove that 
Columbus was a real man. 

Yet, there is a peculiarity about this argument 
which does distinguish it from the analogies 
that have been cited. The relation of Christ to 
the Church is closer than that of conqueror, or 
pilgrim, or discoverer, to his work. When we 
come to analyze the latter, we find other factors 
mingled in their history. There were other dis- 
coverers who cooperated with Columbus, other 
patriots who shared with Washington in the 
foundation of our liberties, other pilgrims than 
those who landed on the historic Rock ; and we 
can plausibly claim honor for other names than 
these, as we consider historical events. But, as 
to the Church, there is no one but Christ to 
whom its origin can be attributed. It tells of 
Him alone. His reality stands as its only foun- 
dation. It is easier to believe that any one else 
than a Dante wrote the Divine Comedy than to 
believe that any one else than a Jesus originated 
the Church ; easier to believe that some noble 
fabric that has its builder's name on corner-stone 
and pinnacle is inscribed with an untruth, than 
that the fabric of the Church, written all over 



WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 85 

with the name of Jesus, proclaims a falsehood. 
We can separate the architect from his work. 
We cannot separate Christ from the Church. 

This same principle of sufficient and appro- 
priate reason, or cause and effect, applies to the 
institutions of Christianity, of which we select 
three. 

One is Baptism. This is an ordinance of effus- 
ing or immersing, with the use of water, in the 
name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Ghost, with the declaration that it was estab- 
lished by Jesus as the mode of initiation into His 
Church. It is not only now, but it has always 
been used for this purpose, and with this decla- 
ration. Furthermore, there have been, from 
the first, disputes about the value and methods 
of it. There have been sects and parties and 
persons interested in doing away with its use 
and obligation. Yet it continues, in all lands 
and divisions of Christendom, as a thing so man- 
ifestly handed down from a Christ who estab- 
lished it, so palpably assignable but to Him, and 
bearing on the face of it such tokens of His be- 
ing its deviser and appointer, that no Christians 
have dared to dispense with it except a few in- 
significant sects which either are now extinct, or 
are fast dying out. Now, only a real Christ can 
have founded a rite that has been such a factor in 
the religious life, or that would not have died out 
ere this, as so many practices have done, which 
in themselves seemed more likely to endure. 



86 WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 

Again, consider the Lord's Supper. This is 
a curious ceremony for the chief religious act of 
Christendom, and for such lands and days as our 
own. It is eating bread and drinking wine in 
our assemblies, a sort of meal in Church. It 
purports to have been instituted by Jesus Christ, 
on the eve of His crucifixion, for the purpose, 
among other things, of keeping fresh the remem- 
brance of Him and His death. A part of the 
ceremony is, and always has been, rehearsing the 
alleged story of its appointment at the time to 
which it refers. Old liturgies that we possess, 
from a brief period after that date, contain this 
rehearsal, as well as those of to - day. There 
have been also special controversies about this 
rite. Christendom has been divided upon its 
details, yet all have clung to the ceremony as 
coming to each independently of the rest. 

Now, is it not unreasonable to ask us to believe 
that a holy ordinance, one that is so ancient, 
coming to so many different lands by separate 
lines of transmission, one that was used as it is 
now by those who had opportunity to know, and 
every interest to proclaim, the truth about it, — 
that such an ordinance rehearses a falsehood, and 
then bases thereupon a pious and prayerful act 
of worship ? It is difficult to understand how the 
existence of any person whom we have not seen 
with our own eyes can be certain, if this unique, 
this monumental, ordinance of the Holy Commu- 
nion does not show the reality of Jesus Christ. 



WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 87 

Consider, lastly, the Lord's Day, or Sunday. 
This, the first day of the week, is used as we use 
it because the Church appointed it at an early 
date to commemorate the resurrection and the 
triumph of the Church's Founder. 

It adds, therefore, a new fact to those we have 
more particularly dwelt upon hitherto, the rising 
of Jesus from the dead. All the arguments for 
Christianity involve this fact. The foundation 
of the Church, the observance of Baptism and 
of the Eucharist, imply it, for two reasons. In 
the first place, a dead Christ could have founded 
nothing. Men do not trust and preach and urge 
on others as a Saviour one who, whatever he had 
been, yet died and was buried as other men. If 
Calvary had been the end of the story of Jesus, 
there is no reason to suppose that story would 
have lived a hundred years, much less that we 
should ever have heard of it. Stories much 
more apt to endure have been forgotten. And 
so this one, of a life lived obscurely in an ob- 
scure land, without leaving a line of writing or a 
single relic, followed by such convulsions as those 
that came over the land where it was lived, sweet 
as it was, would have been forgotten when the 
children had died to whom fathers might have 
told it, unless, after the disappointment of its 
end, Jesus had reappeared to send out those who 
should perpetuate it. His disciples went back 
from Jerusalem to their homes and fishing nets, 
and they would have stayed there, if a risen 



88 WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 

Jesus had not called them to His work again. 
The Church as an organization would never have 
existed, for the memory of a martyr does not 
found a thing like that. But, more than this, 
the resurrection of Jesus cannot be separated 
from His story. We know no Jesus but the 
risen Jesus. The only sources whence we learn 
that He lived tell us that He rose. If we do 
not believe the evidence of His resurrection, we 
have no reason to believe that He ever existed. 
The only reason for believing that He uttered 
the Sermon on the Mount is a testimony that 
tells of His victory over the grave. The idea of 
a Jesus that died and did not rise is unknown 
to any but a few credulous skeptics. It has no 
historical warrant of any kind. Consistency may 
lead to denying both, but, if one is believed, the 
evidence for that is as strong for the other. It 
is either to no Christ or to a risen Christ, that 
we must come at last. 

Now, the Lord's Day is a special witness of 
this. Here is one day of the week, observed all 
through the ages, in lands that have had no con- 
nection, in Churches as wide apart as India and 
Africa and Britain, and that have been willing to 
receive nothing from each other ; which says of 
itself that it is set apart to be the day for Chris- 
tians to express their joy for the resurrection 
that completed and assured their redemption. 
How can the day be accounted for if this testi- 
mony is not true ? How can such a festival come 



WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 89 

into being if the fact did not occur ? How can 
it, with all its antiquity, and all its memories, 
bear a lie upon its face ? It is more conceivable 
that the local festival of the Fourth of July is 
the commemoration of an event that never oc- 
curred than that this universal festival of Chris- 
tendom is the memorial of what never took 
place. 

But still further. This day is ostensibly the 
substitution of the first day of the week as the 
holy day, in place of the seventh, because the 
great fact which happened upon it authorized 
such a change by the Church. Now we have 
means of knowing that such a change was made. 
The Jews still keep the last day, Saturday, as the 
sacred one of the seven. They are still six days 
behind us in their religious services, and charge 
us with an unauthorized alteration in this respect. 
That is, the use of Sunday was a revolution. 
Now, how can this revolution and its success be 
accounted for unless there was reason for it in 
an event considered sufficient to warrant it ? 
This abiding difference between us and the Jews 
shows the reality of the cause that led to it. 

So do all these lines of thought, based upon 
present, palpable facts, arguments available to 
every one, show the historical reality of the 
career of Jesus Christ. It lies behind all our 
civilization no less than behind all our Christian- 
ity, as its cause and origin. It is the one fact on 
the forefront of the world. 



90 WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 

But some, whose minds are peculiarly consti- 
tuted, hesitate to assent to all this because of a 
hypothesis that they raise without perceiving 
what it involves. They say that our argument 
rests upon the trustworthiness of the founders 
of the Church. They are not prepared to say 
that these founders were deceivers, so they ask, 
may not these men have been deluded ? Now 
this does not apply to the argument from the 
blessings conferred by Christ, nor to that from 
His character : they are untouched by any such 
hypothesis ; yet it is conceivably the case as to 
the foundation of the Church and its institutions. 
That is, we may say it is speculatively possible 
that Christianity was originated by men who 
were convinced that Christ lived and died and 
rose as they taught, but who were under a great 
hallucination. But practically this does not help 
the doubter. Our reply to him is that it is an 
inadmissible supposition to conscientious and 
reasonable men, and more improbable than what 
it opposes. 

In the first place, it is an impugnment, for 
which there is no warrant, of the intelligence of 
such men as John and Paul and their compan- 
ions, who did such a work and showed such de- 
votion unto death. There is no justification for 
such an attack upon their sagacity, no ground for 
saying that they are not just as trustworthy as 
any other men upon whom we rely for matters 
that we have not ourselves seen. 



WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 9 1 

Again, if we say they were deluded, we make 
them the authors of Christianity. Then all the 
blessings of light and hope and redemption that 
it has brought are due to them. Then they have 
done for us what we ask and wish from God. 
They are gods to us. They are saviors. Then 
let us worship them ; for, if it is they who have 
shown such love and such power, they deserve it, 
and no one else can claim it more rightly. 

But, still again, there is then no gospel. If 
what we call such is the work of hallucinated 
men, then it is only speculation, only guesswork, 
and instead of having something to rest upon, as 
we had fondly hoped, we are thrown back upon 
our old misery. Heaven is still unopened. No 
voice has come thence. Our faith rests upon 
delusions. Our hope has no foundation. Sin 
must still be expiated by ourselves. We must 
still work and struggle in our own strength. 
And so this reply of the doubter plunges a world 
that had begun to take heart into unrelieved de- 
spair. It has still to wait for some response to 
all its appeals and prayers. 

But, beyond all this, think what this assertion 
or doubt implies. It means that this world's 
greatest imposture has been its greatest blessing. 
That Christianity has been its greatest blessing 
is clear. It has done what nothing else has done 
to relieve the ills and to lighten the darkness of 
the world, to cheer our own lives, to comfort our 
loved ones, to hallow the saints of the ages. 



92 WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 

Yet, if the work of deluded men, it is a fraud, 
and the supremest fraud in all earth's history. 
No lie has ever had such a power, no hallucina- 
tion such a sway. 

Now this cannot be allowed to be possible. It 
is immoral, it is opposed to conscience, it is 
wrong, to say that all the benefits of the gospel 
can be due to a delusion. For it means that 
the false can work for human good better than 
the true. Then why seek for truth ? Then, con- 
sistently, we must ask, not what is true, but 
what will apparently work well ? Let us seek de- 
lusions and ignore verities. The man who says 
this with which we are dealing affirms therein, 
not only that truth cannot be found, but that it 
would be love's labor lost if found, since it has 
no superior value over a deception. He affirms 
that it is just as well to teach falsehoods as facts. 
This is to doubt the reality of right and wrong. 
And furthermore, if it can happen that the great- 
est of benefits to others and ourselves can ensue 
upon an unequaled fraud, then why trouble our- 
selves to act rightly ? If it has happened so 
once, in a great instance, why may it not again 
in our own cases ? Why is it not probable that 
it will ? When one says, " I will do evil that 
good may come," we can only reply that good can- 
not come from evil, and that the man who acts on 
that principle is immoral. Yet, if this hypothe- 
sis of which we are speaking be true, we cannot 
give that reply. We must say that perhaps it is 



WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 93 

as well to do evil as to do good, that one need 
not concern himself about his conduct, his influ- 
ence, his work, his teaching, if deluded men have 
been the world's highest benefactors by a fraud, 
innocent though they were of evil intent. 

So we answer the objection that perhaps the 
Church was founded upon mistaken affirmations 
of some men as to Jesus, that it involves inadmis- 
sible suppositions, and is impossible to those who 
believe that good and evil are different things, 
that one must do right and must not do wrong, 
that sin and error injure, and righteousness and 
truth benefit, us and our neighbor. It is no 
relief to the perplexed, or to one who feels the 
force of doubt, for it is harder to believe than 
Christianity itself ; and to teach it is to break 
the moorings for the lives and characters of our- 
selves, our children, and our fellow-men. 

Yet, notice this. If you cannot accept this 
alternative there is no other. To this point the 
discussion has now attained. All thoughtful 
skeptics concede that one must either believe 
as the Church does, or explain Christianity by 
this theory of delusion, and as being, therefore, 
a fraud. They declare that there is no other re- 
lief. Unless you agree with us, say they, you 
must agree with the Christendom of the past. 

So we sum up. The establishment of the 
Church by men whom we cannot suppose de- 
luded without imperiling all righteousness, the in- 
stitutions that bear the name of Christ on their 



94 WAS CHRIST AN HISTORICAL REALITY? 

front, the character that is manifestly beyond 
human capacity to create, the blessings that can 
be traced to no other source, — all these facts 
make it sure, as no other event is sure in all hu- 
man history, that that is true which the Church 
proclaims regarding Jesus ; and we know that in 
staking our hopes for time and for eternity upon 
Him, we are resting upon that which cannot be 
shaken, we are reposing upon the one certain 
thing amid the uncertainties of the past, our 
feet are on the Rock of Ages. 



LECTURE IV. 

WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST ? 

"The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." — yohn 
i. 14. 

We have seen that Christianity is a revelation 
of comforting and saving facts regarding God's 
provision for our needs, made in the person and 
career of Jesus Christ, who lived, died, and rose, 
as the Church was founded to proclaim. 

Now, who is He that has done all this for us ? 
The question is important, most obviously, and 
is shown to be so by the very discussions re- 
garding it. It was agitated for centuries by the 
keenest and holiest of minds. " What think ye 
of Christ ?" is to-day the great theme of thought 
and controversy, and among men and women who 
do not take such trouble about trifles. It is im- 
portant because, as disputants have seen, very 
extensive consequences depend upon the answer 
that is given. The whole form and character of 
Christianity, that is, of that religious life of the 
world about us which is the hope of the rest of 
the world, will be affected by the conceptions 
that are held of Him upon whom that religious 
life rests. It is very well to say, and there is 



g6 WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 

undoubtedly some truth in it, that the great thing 
is to follow Christ, and that our views of Him 
are secondary. It is true that orthodoxy has 
often given the impression that the prime con- 
cern is to think of Him rightly, and that right 
discipleship is of comparatively slight moment. 
It is nevertheless true that the question as to 
His rank in the scale of being is not a fruitless, 
unpractical inquiry, for the character of our dis- 
cipleship will depend upon our opinion of Him 
who is our Lord and Master. Is is also true 
that the nature of our trust will depend upon our 
conceptions of Him whom we trust. The degree 
to which we have confidence in the facts dis- 
closed will accord with our conviction as to the 
position of Him who discloses them. Faith is 
altogether conditioned by its opinion of its ob- 
ject. It has therefore been seen in history, and 
may be seen now, that the color, the shape, the 
permanence, the peace, of Christianity are con- 
nected with the answer to our inquiry. 

And so all this discussion has been due to a 
desire to avoid error and reach truth in so im- 
portant an issue. All earnest men wish their 
religious beliefs and hopes to be well founded 
and sincere, since Jesus Christ is inseparable 
from Christianity, inseparable to us from reli- 
gion. Since the issue is forced upon us in books 
and magazines and newspapers, and by lectures, 
we must meet it. We must recognize its signif- 
icance and deal with it, unless we are utterly in- 



WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 97 

different to the great concerns at stake. It does 
not satisfy to say that the solution is beyond us. 
True, we cannot pretend to reach it perfectly. 
All lives are mysteries and run up into mystery. 
Much more is such a life, especially from the 
stand-point of the Church. Theology has too 
often alienated seekers by apparently claiming to 
make final formulae of deep things, to understand 
God and man, and to explain their union, whether 
in sanctification, in providence, or in Incarnation ; 
but the Church is committed to no such presump- 
tuousness. It knows that its Lord's being is a ful- 
ler, richer thing than can ever be fathomed. And 
so, none but erratics, or would be Titans, claim 
to have scaled the heights opened by the contem- 
plation of Christ. Yet these heights can be as- 
cended, up to reasonable limits. We may expect 
to learn, to some extent, what can and what can- 
not be known. We can hope to gain some fixed 
points in the inquiry regarding the nature even 
of this Saviour, before whom the world stands 
in reverence, and the Church in faith, sufficient 
to enable us to say, not exhaustively, yet truly, 
who and what He is. With such data as are at 
its command we must surely grant this much to 
human intelligence, however humble be our esti- 
mate of it. 

Perhaps our inquiry may be best conducted by 
discussing the answer that Christendom has 
reached, and then setting forth its verification. 

The Church declares that this historical per- 



98 WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 

sonage, Jesus Christ, is " God manifest in the 
flesh ; " that behind that human life was a divine 
personality ; yet that He was not the Father, but 
the second of a Trinity in the divine Unity, in- 
carnate in humanity ; the divine Being having 
such threefoldness that this Incarnation is both 
a possibility, and a manifest reality. 

This is what the Church, and all Christians, 
save an inconsiderable few, have held since 
thought dealt with and answered the question we 
are considering. It is the form in which the 
gospel has been made known, has done its work, 
and is clung to to-day. Not only does the preva- 
lence of this answer warrant our studying the 
theme by starting from it, as having the pre^ 
sumption in its favor, but it shows the issue to 
be met. The alternative presented is tremen- 
dous. If this belief is a mistake, then Chris- 
tianity has been involved in a stupendous error ; 
has been, and is, fundamentally wrong. For it 
vitiates everything else to err radically on the 
nature of Deity. Then no feature of the gospel 
can continue to stand as it is now held, since 
every other part is affected by this one. Every 
phase of objective and subjective Christianity 
must be changed if there is error here ; and all 
Christendom, all Christian life and thought, are 
condemned, as fostering a delusion that is a blas- 
phemy. On the other hand, if this view of 
Christ is true, the denial of it is an equally stu- 
pendous error, and is a loss that is without equal, 



WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 99 

for it means the rejection of the vision of God 
among men, denial that God was in Christ re- 
conciling the world unto Himself. 

In studying this subject, it will help us to as- 
certain first how this conclusion was reached ; 
for it is possible with little technicality of terms 
to tell to any one the story of the process. 

I call it a process, for such it was. There is 
no doubt as to the rank that the Church from 
the first accorded to its Lord. Christians loved 
and adored Him, sung praises and uttered pray- 
ers to Him, declared in their simple services and 
in their use of the formula of baptism, their 
ascription to Him of supreme lordship. But, 
very naturally, this belief entered into their life 
before they asked and thought how it was true. 
They did not at first labor at the question, how 
can He be such ? How is this lordship to be 
harmonized with the truth about the unity of 
deity ? But they were compelled to labor at it 
very soon. From without and from within came 
the question and answers, accompanied by ex- 
planations which had to be weighed, and either 
approved or condemned. One person or sect 
after another had its hypothesis, and each had to 
be scrutinized, whether it were allowable, accord- 
ing to the criteria that must control. So, by a 
process of exclusion of inadmissible explanations, 
and of adoption of necessary steps in advance, 
the Church came, at length, to formulate its defi- 
nition of what it understood by the formula of 



100 WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 

baptism, In the name of the Father, and of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; and of what it 
meant by Christ being the Son of God : that 
doctrine to which it has clung so unalterably 
ever since, and which is the one indestructible 
thing in the changes and revolutions of Chris- 
tian history. 

Some tell us that the matter cannot be viewed 
in this way ; that it must be settled by the New 
Testament alone ; that this belief can stand upon 
no other ground. Some say so who believe the 
doctrine in question, and, undervaluing the think- 
ing and authority of the Church, assert that they 
find it in the Scriptures sufficiently defined. It 
is a pity that the early Christians could not find 
it so definitely expressed there, for it would soon 
have put an end to controversy, and averted the 
necessity of Councils. It would also have ren- 
dered any words superfluous in the Creed be- 
yond the quotation of some such texts. 

To another class of objectors, who say that 
we must give texts for our doctrine or not expect 
them to accept this belief of Christendom, we 
reply that we regard ourselves, and them, bound 
to accept plain inferences from sufficient data, 
and that necessary correlation of them which 
holy thinking has made evident. We admit that 
no words can be put on the lips of people, as 
of divine obligation, that are not from divine 
sources ; and, conversely, we insist that it is rea- 
sonable to expect acceptance of a definition based 



WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 1 01 

upon divine foundations so directly as is that of 
the Church's faith. 

For the truth is that the New Testament con- 
tains facts and statements that can lead to no 
other definition of Christ than the one which 
Christendom reached, and by which it abides, 
while it may contain no specific texts that suf- 
ficed to settle controversy between those who took 
different ground in interpreting the sacred writ- 
ings. Some phraseology was needed, as the inter- 
pretation of Scripture and the expression of the 
meaning of faith in Jesus Christ, which would be 
unmistakable, to which Christendom would cling, 
and to which all must assent who would speak 
for the Church and claim its indorsement for 
their teaching. Let us now trace the process 
more in detail. 

The standard by which Christian thought 
guided itself in this steering between conflicting 
views is, of course, to be noticed at the outset. 
It was not so simple as some appear to imagine. 
The object was to think rightly, both of Christ 
and of Deity, and to avoid thinking wrongly. 
To this end, the Church had the utterances of 
Christ Himself, and of His Apostles regarding 
Him, both directly and indirectly bearing upon 
the theme. The former are immediate assertions 
of His rank, the latter are statements regarding 
the relation in which His people are to stand to- 
wards Him, as the object of trust and homage. 

This teaching came down by tradition received 



102 WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 

from those who had heard Him, and embodied in 
the life of Christianity. It came in the worship, 
the services of the Church. It came in the Sac- 
raments. These last certainly conveyed a very 
distinct idea as to the position which Jesus was 
to be accorded in Christendom, and therefore it 
was a fundamental idea, not one of later initia- 
tion. The teaching also came in Apostolic writ- 
ings, which, as we shall see, though not yet so 
exclusively relied upon as they came to be later, 
still contained enough to guide thought when it 
would meet foes without, and error within the 
fold. 

All this at once excluded any idea that Jesus 
was merely a man. There was a slight attempt 
to give such an explanation of Him, called Ebion- 
ism. It was the view of some Jewish Christians, 
who could not abandon their conceptions of God, 
and thought that any ascription of divine rank 
to Jesus conflicted with Monotheism. They re- 
garded Him as the Messiah, who was miracu- 
lously born, rose from the dead, was sinless and 
perfectly inspired, yet only a man of miracle. 
It may be worth noting, in passing, that no Chris- 
tians ever held any lower view. Some, outside 
the pale, heathens and Jews, affirmed that he 
was only a Jew born of wedlock, though unu- 
sually good and gifted ; but no Christian, none 
who regarded Him as Master or Lord, did so, as 
no one ever can, for it is absurd so to regard such 
a Jesus. Yet these few Ebionites, who did make 



WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 103 

Him a Saviour, denied Him to be of more than 
human rank ; said that He was miraculous, yet a 
creature. But this view did not spread nor live. 
It was confined to a few among the Jews. It 
had no foothold at all among the Gentiles, for it 
was seen to be incompatible with the utterances 
of Jesus, with the teachings of Apostles, and 
with anything like that trust or adoration of 
Him which had been the very characteristic of 
Christianity from the beginning. We must never 
lose sight of this, that primitive Christianity, 
instead of holding that our Lord was but human, 
however extraordinary, repudiated the idea, as 
not to be entertained for an instant, in the pres- 
ence of what was known about Him and His 
work, as soon as a sect arose from Jewish preju- 
dices to maintain it ; and this sect found no place, 
and died out in a few years. It has been so ever 
since. This conception of Christ was resusci- 
tated in recent times under the name of Socin- 
ianism, but has not been able to live among 
those that pretend to believe in Him as in any 
sense a Redeemer. It has had on its side ear- 
nest and gifted men, and has had in its favor a 
seeming simplification of great problems, yet no 
Church, no sect, has adopted it. It has not been 
able to form a sect for itself that remains Chris- 
tian, in the real sense, and has gained no foot- 
hold in the Church of baptized and believing peo- 
ple. It is found to be so incompatible with the 
very nature of Christian discipleship, so conflict- 



104 WH0 WAS J ESJ JS CHRIST? 

ing with the needs of religion instead of supply- 
ing them, that religious people will have none of 
it. As unreligious men do not care for it, since 
they have no reason to ask that even this much 
be accorded to Jesus, this conception of Him, a 
friendless applicant for admission into human 
thought, is again disappearing into the region of 
inadmissible speculations, as it did when every 
door was closed upon it seventeen centuries ago. 

So it is a fact that the thought of the Church, 
as soon as it began to think, had really no other 
problem to deal with than this, — how can Christ 
be God manifest in the flesh ? All agreed, save 
the unimportant few, that divine rank belongs to 
Him, according to the nature of Christianity and 
its fundamental positions. But the issue how 
that is to be defined had to be met. Various re- 
plies were suggested, and many conflicting ones, 
all claiming apostolic authority and Scripture 
teaching in their behalf, and Christians had to 
settle which were allowable and which were not, 
in view of loyalty to Him, to their conscience, 
and to God. 

One reply suggested was that He was God 
and nothing else, that His humanity was a mere 
phantasm, that His apparently human expe- 
riences, such as being touched, being weary, 
rejoicing, suffering and being crucified, were only 
semblances. This was called Docetism, or the 
hypothesis of semblance. Perhaps this was the 
greatest danger that the Church ever met. It 



WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 1 05 

spread so rapidly that at times, in the second or 
third century, if the list of the baptized had 
been polled, it would probably have had the 
majority. This is a very significant fact. It 
shows how untrue it is to say that the Church 
by a gradual process made a man into a God. 
It shows that the original impression made by 
Jesus was such that His disciples tended at the 
first to deny that He was human at all ; that 
they who lived nearest to Him had, not the 
greater, but the less, realization of His manhood ; 
and that the work of thinking and leading minds 
had to be that of persuading the mass of people 
that He was really man. That is, instead of work- 
ing up to the addition of His Godhead to His 
Manhood, the actual process was working down, 
against Docetic exaggeration, to the apprehen- 
sion of his manhood : a limitation, not an exten- 
sion, of His divinity. 

One evidence of all this is seen in the Apos- 
tles' Creed. Why was it necessary to say that 
Christ suffered, was crucified, died and was bur- 
ied ? Because so many denied these facts, af- 
firming that His divinity precluded them ; and 
those passages were put there to prevent Chris- 
tians being misled into the denial of our Lord's 
humanity. They record the fact that, while dis- 
belief in His deity had never yet endangered the 
Church, this error so nearly swamped it at its 
birth that the Creed had to be so shaped as to 
combat it. 



106 WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 

It became clear that Docetism was untenable. 
All that believers knew of Christ, by Scripture 
and tradition and common sense, all that others 
who had seen Him told them, made it certain 
that He was human as any one else ; and conse- 
quently the question arose, how the divine in Him 
could be maintained while asserting His human- 
ity. And this cost the keenest conflicts that have 
ever been known in the history of human thought, 
the acutest discussions ever pursued about deep 
things. 

There were two principal views or hypotheses 
advanced, between which Christian thought had 
to find some middle ground that it could stand 
upon. 

One was that view, very widely and acutely 
urged, called Sabellianism, after its chief expo- 
nent. It said that Christ was, in an indiscrimi- 
nating sense, God, the full manifestation of all 
that can be predicated of deity. Some held that 
He whom we call Father is the Eternal, personal 
deity, looked at as the source of all being ; then, 
as manifested in the work of Christ, we call Him 
Son ; and in the work of the Holy Spirit we call 
Him by that third name. Others, and most of 
the advocates of this opinion, said that deity is 
originally not personal at all, but only the imper- 
sonal absolute, and that Christ is, as is also the 
Father, one of the three personal forms that this 
absolute One assumes in succession. That is, all 
this school taught that the Triunity in God is 



WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 107 

not a real threefoldness, but only one of mani- 
festation, — three masks through which He looks 
out among us, who Himself is unitarian, not 
complex in any sense or manner. This theory 
had two leading difficulties. One was that, if 
Christ revealed God as threefold, then He must 
be threefold, or the revelation does not reveal the 
truth about Him. If anything is true of the 
Gospel, it is that it represents God as Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost. If He is not such, but 
only is manifested as such, then we are no wiser 
than before ; on the contrary, we have been mis- 
led. The other difficulty is that Christ, instead 
of confusing Himself with the Father or the 
Holy Ghost, always distinguishes between Them 
and Himself, is sent by the one, and sends the 
other. These objections led the Church to see 
that Sabellianism was no relief, and not a per- 
missible hypothesis, in the discussion how Christ 
could be God while there is yet but one true 
God. 

It would seem plausible to say then that, if 
Christ must not be confused with the Father, 
nor made synonymous with deity, there is no 
alternative but to hold that He must be distin- 
guished from real deity ; that, though all the 
homage and worship accorded Him may and 
must be continued, He is yet to be excluded 
from actual Godhead. This was what Arius 
and his party affirmed. In the interest of what 
Christianity clearly demanded, they admitted 



108 WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 

that He was not of human or angelic rank, but 
higher than all, and fit to be accorded supreme 
honors and titles ; yet they held that He is not 
God as the Father is ; He is dependent, not self- 
existent. They argued for this theory, not 
merely upon the basis of its being the only alter- 
native to Sabellianism, but from the name " Son 
of God," affirming that if He is Son, then, how- 
ever exalted, He is yet not of equal exaltation 
with the Father, and could not be ; He must be 
other than the Eternal. But this had greater 
difficulties than the theory it would supplant. 

It made Christ a creature, however highly ex- 
alted, and therefore unfit to be adored, unwar- 
ranted in claiming that allegiance and that hom- 
age which Christians give Him, and which was 
the original relationship in which He placed Him- 
self to His people. It also made one divine who 
was not actually such. It gave us a. godlike God. 
This is polytheism, after all ; and Christians 
would not allow that any one but the Eternal 
could be partaker of the divine characteristics. 
It also leads to this dilemma : if Christ is not 
true God, then He cannot reveal God, for only 
God can reveal God. It was claimed by Arian- 
ism that Christ did this, yet it is difficult to see 
why we need make Him more than a mere man 
if we do not concede His deity, since the most 
exalted creature is no more capable of revealing 
God than the humblest ; and so the assistance 
rendered to the problem by Arianism is only 



WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 109 

imaginary. This has been so fully perceived by 
others since, that an attempt to revive Arianism 
has fallen dead in this century. It has no ad- 
vantage over the complete denial of Christ's 
divinity ; it does not relieve the difficulty any 
more than its rival, Sabellianism. The latter can 
square with some features of our Lord's story, 
and some of His utterances. The former is in 
hopeless conflict with all that He said and 
claimed. The dispute which it raised turned 
upon including or excluding an iota in a Greek 
word, which makes all the difference between 
saying that the Son was the same as God, or 
only like God ; and some, following Gibbon, have 
sneered at so much controversy over a letter. 
But that is true which Froude reports Carlyle as 
saying, that, though he once likewise sneered at 
the dispute as unimportant, he yet came to see, 
at last, that in that iota Christianity itself was at 
stake. If Arius had won, he adds, Christianity 
would have dwindled away into a legend. For 
this was the issue : Was the Gospel a communi- 
cation and a redemption made by a creature, or 
by our God ? If the former, it had no reason to 
claim enduring supremacy ; it contained no war- 
rant for our trust. 

But now there seemed to be a deadlock, if 
Christ was not the same as the Father, nor yet 
different in rank and nature. To the many, 
there seemed no third alternative. What is to 
be done? they asked. Is it possible that room 



IIO WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 

for Christ's deity can be found in the idea of 
God ? Yes, said the thoughtful mind of the 
Christian Church, under the lead of such peer- 
less men as Origen and Athanasius, it can. 

What is the true conception of God ? It is 
not the heathen idea of an impersonal absolute, 
nor as some arbitrary speculators, reasoning 
partly from Judaism, but chiefly from philosoph- 
ical assumptions, affirm, that of a monad, a sim- 
ple, unitarian being. It is the conception of the 
Eternal One as having a threefold, complex life. 
This is the only way in which God is made 
known in the Gospel. It is the form of His 
name into which we are to be baptized. It is 
the way in which He is spoken of, in all the New 
Testament, by Jesus and His Apostles. So the 
thought of Him is not exhausted when we say 
Father ; and, as would seem obvious, if words 
have any meaning, the Son is not only like the 
Father, but of the same rank in the scale of 
being, and must be of the same nature : not 
created, but divine. 

It was then seen that the only conception of 
God given to us in revelation is that of unity in 
threefoldness, and that thus the deity of Christ, 
which had to be conceded if He rightly claimed 
our homage, could be affirmed without making 
Him identical with the Father or the Holy Ghost. 
In this way the dilemma is solved which other- 
wise would be hopeless indeed. 

This result and conclusion were formally an- 



WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 1 1 1 

nounced at the Council of Nice in 325, which 
did not claim to create the fact, or add a doctrine 
to the faith ; but did claim, as against contending 
parties, that the Christian idea of God is such 
that each of the Three is to be regarded as 
really divine, that all Three form the completed 
definition of the Eternal One, and that thus the 
Church's Lord was the incarnation of the Sec- 
ond in the undivided divine Unity of the Three. 

And this doctrine of the Trinity has stood 
ever since, permanent in Christianity. Reforma- 
tions and schisms and sects have not shaken it 
in the belief of Christians. People have given 
it up, when giving up Christianity, but, with in- 
significant exceptions, they have not done so 
while believing in Christ as a Saviour. The rea- 
son is, of course, that no Christian will be con- 
tent with a Saviour that is less than divine, nor 
concede Christ to be less than He claims ; while 
he will neither confound Him with the Father 
nor the Sanctifier, for the distinction between 
them is obviously necessary to the religious 
mind. This indestructibility amid such divisions 
on other points would seem to be evidence of 
its truth. At any rate, it has been shown that 
there can be no Christianity without it that can 
work or endure. 

And we see how this doctrine was reached, a 
matter about which there is much confusion of 
thought. It did not come from metaphysical 
speculation that, as some tell us, conquered the 



112 WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 

Church when it gave up piety for philosophy. 
Nor did it come from exaggerated use of isolated 
texts. It was the result of a process of inquiry, 
— How is it that Christ is really our Lord and 
worthy of our adoration ? Which led to asking, 
What is God revealed to be in the Gospel ? That 
is, study disclosed the truth which has ever since 
been accepted, that God as revealed to us is three- 
fold in His being. 

What reason have we for disputing this ? One 
who does so must claim that he knows what God 
is, apart from His revelation of Himself. This 
is the claim of some, by virtue of which they 
reject our belief and teach that He is unitarian 
in His life. But how do they know that their 
idea is right ? It has no authority. It has never 
been held by any religion in the world. All reli- 
gious belief apart from Christianity and its fore- 
runner, the faith of Israel, and the religion of 
Mahomet derived therefrom, has been pantheistic 
or polytheistic. The only conception that has 
any value for us is that which He has given us, 
for we only know God according to what He tells 
us of Himself, and what is told us is that He is 
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, not any one of 
these alone. This is the sole way in which He 
is presented to us in the Gospel, by Jesus or His 
Apostles, and there is no foundation for the 
unitarian idea but the philosophical speculation 
of a Great First Cause, which indeed God is, 
but which is not the God the Christian worships 
and loves. 



WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? I 1 3 

But is it verifiable ? Is this doctrine, which is 
so inseparable from the Incarnation, more than 
a result of pious logic ? Can it be shown to be 
necessary, to candid minds ? These are reasona- 
ble questions, and Christian thinkers have always 
replied that they can be met to the satisfaction 
of the religious conscience. We do not dwell 
upon metaphysical arguments, such as that God 
cannot be conceived of, either as a thinking or as 
a loving being, save as a Trinity in Unity. There 
is force in these arguments. Beyond question, 
they are unanswerable. As to the former, a 
thinking being becomes complex in his life by 
the very fact of self-consciousness. That is, to 
those who say that God is unitarian, we reply 
that neither a divine personality nor any other 
ever did or can live a unitarian life. It is an 
impossibility to intelligent existence. Panthe- 
ism has some philosophical plausibility. Uni- 
tarianism has none whatever. As opposed to the 
latter, it is obvious that if God is loving He must 
have within Himself an object of love, or else He 
was not actually loving until creation came into 
being ; unless the world was eternal, as some 
admit in order to avoid the dilemma. 

Again, look at it in this way. God is love. 
This will be disputed by no one with whom we 
are now concerned. If, then, He is loving, He 
must act accordingly and do deeds of love. But 
how can this be, unless He is in some way so 
constituted that it is possible for Him to come, 



114 WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 

or speak, or act towards us ? A God so consti- 
tuted that it is impossible that there be in Him 
that which we call the Son or the Holy Spirit, 
is reduced to a God who has in Him nothing by 
virtue of which He can do more than, at the 
most, feel love without any practical display of 
it. That is, the denial of the Trinity means to 
the Church a denial of that conception of God 
which makes goodness and mercy possible, and 
renders Him a self-contained being, with no 
characteristics by which He can enter into rela- 
tions outside of Himself. 

Or, look at it in another light. Is your salva- 
tion, is your sanctification, as well your creation, 
the work of God or of a creature ? The reli- 
gious heart cannot admit the latter ; it is revolt- 
ing. But, if revelation through the Son, and 
sanctification through the Holy Ghost, are divine 
works, then they must be effected by divine 
agents, that is, God must be such that He can 
be to us Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier. If He 
can be to us these three, He must be threefold. 
Call it three persons, or what you will, threefold 
operation means a threefold line of self-determi- 
nation in God. 

Do we understand this doctrine ? No one 
claims to do so who is to be respected for his 
judgment. We do not, and never can, know the 
inner life of God. But this we do know, that 
He has manifested Himself as a Trinity, and 
that we must cling thereto, or else ascribe our 



WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 1 1 5 

redemption and spiritual life to creatures. And 
all we mean is, that God is so constituted that, 
while One, He can yet be and is Father, Son, 
and Holy Ghost, in fact as well as in semblance. 

Do not some hold this who say they are not 
in accord with the Church, and will not use the 
word " Trinity " ? Probably, yes. And, if any one 
does hold it, he holds what the Church means 
and is aiming at, the divine character of redemp- 
tion and regeneration. That he shrinks from 
using the Church's words and creeds is usually 
due to imagining that they imply what extrava- 
gances have made of them. He may not, be- 
cause of misapprehension, see, with the Church, 
that these show really the nature of God ; but 
he grants the Church's essential demands who 
ascribes to God alone the glory of the rescue and 
sanctifi cation of this world, and we can only re- 
gret his not using the Church's language. 

So much for the doctrine of the Trinity. We 
had to deal with it in asking who is Jesus Christ, 
for, if He is " God manifest in the flesh," it can 
only be because, as the Gospel indicates, the na- 
ture of God renders this a possibility. And we 
see how it is not the weakness of Christianity, 
as some say, but its strength, and is that idea 
of God which makes the Gospel good news and a 
treasure to mankind, the idea which alone gives 
us a God who can love and can be loved. 

But now let us revert to the main issue again. 
Some may ask whether, if the deity of Christ 



Il6 WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 

necessitates the Trinity in God, the former is 
sufficiently assured to base upon it such a fact ? 
The Church reached this belief, as we have seen, 
from the premiss that its Lord and Founder was 
divine. Can that be satisfactorily shown to us, 
critical and candid men ? This is a fair question, 
and is entitled to an answer. 

We may answer that He claimed to be divine. 
Of this it is difficult to see any reasonable denial, 
when it is understood. We will not now con- 
sider texts, but consider the attitude which He 
takes before men, and that which He expects men 
to take before Him. He asks allegiance, love, 
trust, homage. He presents Himself always as 
expecting us so to bear ourselves towards Him. 
That is claiming divinity ; for no one has a right 
to ask this, nor any reason to expect it to be 
granted, upon any other basis. He thus assumes 
the relation that only God should, or ever will, 
receive from unsuperstitious men. But, some 
will say, He calls us to Himself, as other teach- 
ers do, that He may lead us to God. But other 
teachers have never done this as He did, claim- 
ing adoration and the heart's surrender. No one, 
no false prophet or true friend of man, has ever 
said, " Come unto me and I will give you rest." 
It would mean attracting humanity away from 
its only rest, enslaving it in a dangerous and 
wicked dependence upon another than its Lord. 
That is, if Christ is not God, He has not only 
demanded what no other has dared to demand, 



WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? WJ 

but He has been the great power in history to 
draw the world away from its God, to lean upon 
another stay and another trust. 

But it m^y still be said that more is needed to 
satisfy us that Christ 13 God. Not only must it 
be proven to us, we must ourselves see it, be- 
fore we can be expected to believe it. True, we 
should not, and cannot, feel sure of anything 
until we see it for ourselves. That is the prin- 
ciple of these lectures. 

The question comes down, then, to this, Do 
we see that Jesus Christ is God ? If He is, He 
must plainly appear to be such. Perhaps we 
must first, before settling this question, settle 
what God is, so as to ascertain what He would 
look like, did we see Him on earth, under the 
form of humanity. 

What is God essentially? What makes Him 
God ? What is that which constitutes His glory, 
His supremacy, His splendor, and secures the 
adoration of His creatures? Of course this, 
whatever it is, must be seen in any alleged in- 
carnation, for His creatures could not recognize 
Him unless this divine glory, this which marks 
off the difference between Him and them, were 
perceptible. What is this ? 

Is it omnipotent power, superiority to limita- 
tions and incapacities, all-conquering and resist- 
less might ? If this is what makes Him God, 
then surely we do not see it in Jesus, the often 
weary, thwarted, tortured, crucified One; and 
then He is not God. 



Il8 IV HO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 

Is the glory of God His wisdom ? Is He es- 
sentially omniscience ? Does that constitute His 
divine isolation ? If so, then, as we certainly do 
not see this in Jesus, who not only shows but 
affirms His limitations, saying there are things 
that He knows not, He may be denied to be the 
divine Incarnation. 

Is that glory, again, His state of majesty and 
splendor? Is He who is enthroned, known and 
regarded as God by the creatures who surround 
Him, because of the ineffable light that dazzles, 
or the accessories of dominion that awe ? If so, 
then, surely we do not see this in the humble 
Jesus, who was so approachable, so lowly, so un- 
feared ; and where the glory of God is lacking, 
there cannot be the vision of God. 

That is, if, proceeding from these assumptions, 
one tell us that the appearance of God would 
mean such a vision as they would lead to ; that, 
to see God incarnate, he must see a resplendent, 
stately, all-wise, invincible person, one who would 
cast into the shade, by these features, all the 
heroes and sages and monarchs of history, — we 
can only admit that, by this test, Jesus Christ can- 
not be proven to be divine. But we can fancy 
another replying — yes, there are many who do 
reply to the question, What would you expect to 
see if you saw God among men ? — in this way : I 
should not expect to see that splendor and might, 
for I could not be sure that the possessor of it 
was my God. Some angel, or some Lucifer, 



WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? I 1 9 

might assume a majesty that would dazzle me, 
and display a power that would awe me, and so 
such things would not prove the presence of 
my God. But, to be sure of seeing Him, to have 
a disclosure of His presence that would leave 
no room for doubt that it is He, I should expect 
His Incarnation to be the manifestation of a 
heart, a character, that would be unmistakably 
divine. So I should expect to see a goodness 
such as earth had never known, a holiness such 
as had been found in no creature. I should ex- 
pect to see a love that is all-embracing, and 
never discouraged ; a patience that never falters 
even under ingratitude, cruelty, and death. That 
is what I should expect to behold, for what 
makes Him God to me is the infinite love that 
isolates Him. That is the basis of His domin- 
ion. On that His throne reposes. Because of 
that the worlds adore Him. That is God's glory. 
Power and wisdom and state are but the trap- 
pings of His majesty, the garments that kingli- 
ness puts on. And just as a king may lay aside 
the robes and state of royalty to go on some 
errand of mercy, and be no less a king because 
retaining his kingly heart and kingly rank, so 
could the Eternal Son discard the paraphernalia 
of His splendor, and be no less divine, when He 
would come in lowlier guise to rescue and recall 
a world. 

Would not this reply be true ? As you bow 
before God, and serve Him with humble heart 



120 WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 

and bated breath, then you think of Him as the 
One before whom angels veil their faces and the 
very heavens are not clean, as the One entitled 
to the lordship of all that lives, do you not know 
and feel that you do so because of what He is ; 
not because of His power or greatness, but be- 
cause of His fathomless love, His infinite, per- 
fect goodness ? You must do so, if you know 
true godliness among men. 

If this be so, it is that which we are to look for 
when we look for God. This is what we should 
expect in an incarnation, the display in human 
conditions of the divine character Is not this 
seen in Jesus Christ ? Surely it is visible to all, 
that in Him are a character, and a personality, 
that are not creaturely, but divine. If perfect 
loveliness is the glory of God, we see " the glory 
of God in the face of Jesus Christ." 

And we see it nowhere else. There have 
been good men, but no infinite goodness. There 
have been lives that showed kind hearts, but 
none that showed such a kindness as can sit upon 
the throne of the universe. There have been 
godlike men, but none among them was a God- 
Man. We see the glory of God in no Socrates, 
nor John, nor Caesar, nor Buddha. In all history 
we see the divine in the human, only and solely 
in the person and career of Jesus of Nazareth. 

And so we come back to the question that we 
set out to answer : How is Jesus Christ visibly 
and perceptibly God ? And we reply that we 



/ 1 'J 10 WA S JES US CHRIS T? 121 

know Him to be such because He looks like God, 
is what God is. The assertion of His deity is 
strange to some only because they start with a 
wrong conception of deity, and then tell us He 
does not meet it. But it does not at all appear 
strange to those who start from the true and 
high idea of God. To them, who have grown out 
of low conceptions of greatness and gained more 
elevated apprehensions of majesty, of moral, per- 
sonal splendor, it needs no proof of texts, nor 
Church authority, to make us believe that God 
was in Christ, for it is plain and manifest. It 
may be, it is, true that what some people may 
mean by God is not incarnate in Him ; but what 
the Christian means is there. The God we wor- 
ship, the God whom we have in mind in the utter- 
ance of that name, that is what we see in Jesus. 
To us, through those eyes looks out the divine 
mind, through those lips speaks the divine heart, 
that life in all its parts, its lowliest as its most 
glorious moments, shows to us God as we believe 
in Him. Yes, in its greatest apparent antithe- 
sis to divinity, the divinity of that life is most ap- 
parent. If the heart is what is most divine in 
God, and if the character of Jesus is what shows 
the unapproachable and uncreated majesty that 
marks Him, then never was Jesus so divine, 
never does His deity so shine out, as when that 
goodness went farthest, and was most tried in 
suffering; when that love was most displayed in 
sacrifice for the sins of the world. That tender- 



122 WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 

ness was most superhuman when He died for 
those who scorned Him ; when those cheeks 
were wet with tears, and that brow was stained 
with blood ; when those eyes looked out from 
beneath the crown of thorns, when that face was 
wan and worn with the night of agony, then do 
we see supremely " the glory of God in the face 
of Jesus Christ." 

But some may still say, How can God become 
man ? We do not nakedly affirm this ; we say 
that God showed Himself through humanity, 
that, in our Lord, God the Son lived humanly. 
Well, how can this be ? 

This objection is only another form of the one 
just referred to, based upon a mistaken concep- 
tion of God, and adds thereto an equally erro- 
neous conception of humanity. 

Some evidently imagine that the Incarnation 
means the compression of an infinitely big or 
great being into the narrow compass of human- 
ity. But God is not to be thought of as having 
any extensiveness or bigness : He is a Spirit, and 
spirits have no more size than color. If this is 
not in the mind, of course, incarnation seems 
impossible and absurd, for no sensible man can 
admit or imagine that one whose infinitude is 
that of extensiveness was made known in Jesus, 
or can be made known, in any way, to men or 
angels. 

But realize that God's infinitude is intensive, 
not extensive ; is that of quality, not quantity ; 



WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 1 23 

realize that it is perfectness, not measureless- 
ness ; that a limitless personality does not mean 
one that is of endless extent, but of infinite good- 
ness, — and then the question is, not whether 
the infinitely great can contract itself into the 
compass of a human soul and its life, but whether 
the unlimitedly perfect One can show Himself 
through the instrumentality of a human life. Is 
human nature, or is it not, capable of being the 
channel of God's displaying Himself to His 
creatures in His true glory ? That it is so, is 
evident, if you conceive aright what that nature 
was made for. It was made to show forth char- 
acter. Now, why cannot a humanity, a soul, 
properly prepared, as was that of Jesus, be capa- 
ble of showing forth a perfect, that is, a divine, 
character ? A musician can express his thought, 
his life, in no ordinary piece of wood or metal, 
but, if he finds one prepared, an instrument that 
is fit, he can through it show forth the harmonies 
of his mental creation. So, while other natures, 
or created things, may not be such, human na- 
ture is, by its very constitution, adapted to show 
forth the life, the thought, of our Maker. Or 
look at it in this way. Every soul is like a lens 
through which we can see some rays of the light 
of goodness. It was intended to be such. Why 
may there not be one, suitably originated and 
shaped, which could focus and show all the glory 
of the sunshine, transmit all the rays of full- 
orbed, holy love ? It is difficult to see why, if 



124 WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 

human life is meant to express indwelling char- 
acter or personality, there may not be a life, prop- 
erly begotten, in which should be expressed the 
indwelling character or personality of God. 

Now, it only remains to ask, Was the life of 
Jesus such ? We have answered this by say- 
ing, Yes, the life of Jesus was the life of God 
under human conditions, as manifestly as can be 
conceived. He said He was God. He acted 
as God. He put Himself into relations that 
God can alone bear to the world. He looks like 
God. 

Suppose a creature, however highly exalted, 
were to be incarnate, do you think he would act 
as Jesus did, or speak as He did, or make the 
impression He made ? We should find a con- 
scious inferiority to the Highest. But here we 
find none. We should find humility before God. 
But here is one who says : " I and my Father 
are one." We should find dependence upon the 
Creator ; but here we hear One saying : " I am 
the Life." No, he knows not how creatures must 
act, knows not how holy creatures do act, in the 
presence of the Creator, who says that the bear- 
ing of Christ was that of one of them. 

Thus, strange as it may seem to some, and 
difficult to believe to the mere philosopher or to 
the heathen, it is not strange to the Christian, 
has not seemed strange to the Church, to believe 
in the Incarnation. It is a necessity to those 
who know what God is like, it is the irresistible 



WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 125 

testimony to the very senses, and the only ver- 
dict of common sense. Not because others tell 
us so, but because it is a patent fact to us, with 
our educated conceptions of Deity, we live, and 
expect to die, by the belief that those hands that 
touched the suffering of old, and that lifted up 
the fallen, were the ministers of a divine pity ; 
that the words that brought that illumination 
to the world, which has lighted it up ever since, 
were from a divine mind ; that the promises which 
have been the stay and peace of generations were 
the promises of a divine power ; that the holiness 
of the life that met the demands of justice in the 
place of imperfect lives was the holiness of the 
Son of God ; that the sacrifice which made atone- 
ment for the race's guilt was the sacrifice of the 
Lord Himself for those who had ruined them- 
selves by sin ; that the resurrection which opened 
the gates of immortality was the triumph of one 
who had in Him the power of an endless life ; 
and that the ascension from Olivet was the In- 
carnate Word assuming forevermore His throne. 
The Christian Church, the body of believers, have 
decided that this is Christianity, its power, its 
value, its essence, that without which any system 
is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Does not this Catholic faith land us in seem- 
ing contradictions and insoluble difficulties ? Cer- 
tainly it does. We cannot explain the relation- 
ship of the Persons in the Trinity to the Unity, 
nor that of the Incarnate Son to the divine es- 



I 26 WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 

sence. But what of it ? We are everywhere 
surrounded by the inexplicable, and every man 
who thinks has to hold what the great thinker 
taught us to call the antinomies. Belief in God 
in any form, in His care, in His eternity, leads 
us to contrasts or apparent antagonisms that 
human thought can never harmonize ; includes 
factors which cannot be reduced to any formula. 
Christianity, as Butler showed, has no difficulty 
of this kind that does not equally beset philoso- 
phy. What are we to do ? One course is to stop 
thinking, to ignore the whole matter, and accept 
agnostic confessions of mental impotence from 
the very beginning. We cannot, we will not, do 
this. It is as wrong as it is vain to expect that 
an extinguisher upon mental activity will be sub- 
mitted to. Another course is to sacrifice one 
horn of the dilemma to the other. So have some 
done with Christ. Some have denied His divin- 
ity, others His humanity, in order to solve the 
problem and gain simplicity. Of course, any 
problem can be solved if one is at liberty to sup- 
press troublesome factors, but it is hardly wise, 
or the way to a satisfactory result. The third 
course is to act as we do every day in common 
life, — to recognize all the evident factors and go 
without a solution if it cannot be reached with- 
out denying some of them. This is what Chris- 
tendom has done. It affirms that Jesus is both 
God and man, because both are equally manifest, 
but admits frankly that there is no formula that 



WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? \2J 

will satisfy all the conditions, and repudiates the 
folly of seeking relief by some statement that 
might be simpler, but only at the cost of one or 
more of the truths that are all of equal precious- 
ness and importance to the believing and the 
needy soul. 

Shall we ever be better off ? Perhaps, to some 
degree hereafter, but we shall never understand 
the inner life and relations of the God-Man. Only 
God can understand His relations to the human, 
in creation and providence ; and more obviously 
true is it that only He can comprehend His re- 
lations in a life lived under human conditions. 
And so to all eternity it will be true, as Jesus 
said : " No man knoweth the Son but the Father, 
and no man knoweth who the Father is but the 
Son, and he to whomsoever the Son shall reveal 
Him." 

In the roof of the apse of the Church of Santa 
Sophia, in Constantinople, the emperor who built 
it placed, on the gilt background of mosaic, a co- 
lossal figure of Christ in colored stones, which, 
with outspread hands, looked down upon the 
worshipers. When the Moslems captured New 
Rome, they changed this church into a mosque, 
and replaced this brilliant picture by new blocks 
of golden stone or glass. But the contrast be- 
tween the new and the older gilding was so 
marked that it made no less distinct, though 
colorless and dim, the outlines of the figure of 
the Saviour. And so for centuries since the Mo- 



123 WHO WAS JESUS CHRIST? 

hammedans, with such imperfect views of Jesus 
and His revelation, have been worshiping there, 
in the presence of a shadow of Christ, and bowed 
beneath the benediction of His outstretched arms. 
Thus it is that, to many minds about us, there 
has faded from the heavens over them the love- 
liness and beauty of the Son of God. They see 
but a Jesus who is like the world of men about 
them, though perhaps more golden. They only 
find in Him a shadow of what He once had been 
to them in earlier days ; and though they may 
not see Him in all His splendor, though they may 
not even realize His presence, yet He bends over 
them in blessing. But when faith comes back 
to them, when again they rear the shrine that 
their hearts call for, and restore the love and trust 
that made their fathers what they were, they will 
see Him again in all His glory, they will rein- 
vest Him with His divine character, and over 
them once more will they see, to their joy and 
to their comfort, the more than rainbow-hued 
beauty of " the image of the Invisible God." 



LECTURE V. 

WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND ? 

" The Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the 
truth." — i Tim. iii. 15. 

Having seen who Jesus Christ is, we now 
come to the question, What did He found ? What 
did He leave behind Him ? or, what is the idea 
of the Church ? 

Here we open up a subject that has long been 
the theme of acute and brilliant controversy upon 
more than one issue that is involved. Let us en- 
deavor to discuss it as simply as possible, and 
with reference to the principal differences of 
opinion on the subject. 

And first we notice that, immediately and 
strictly, Christ founded nothing. Some seem to 
think differently, however, and speak of " the 
Society that Jesus formed," as if there was such 
a thing, which of course would then be the norm 
for us forever. But it is difficult to see how in 
any sense He can be said to have formed a So- 
ciety. During His lifetime, His followers came 
and went, walked with Him and fell away, with 
notable fickleness ; and as to those who were 
more intimately associated with Him, even they 



130 WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 

forsook Him in His peril. One betrayed Him, 
their leader denied Him, and all returned after 
His crucifixion to their homes and their pursuits. 
Surely we cannot look at such a state of affairs 
for the beginning of that brotherhood which has 
done His work in the world. Such a Society, if 
it is entitled to that name, with no organization, 
no agreed belief, no capacity for endurance, 
would never have been heard of again, had it 
been the whole of the movement that Jesus ini- 
tiated. It may have a certain attractiveness, as 
a collection of men united by common regard for 
Him, but it had not one of the features which 
have marked that Church which has been a bless- 
ing to mankind. 

But, again, the Church could not be founded 
until after He had risen from the grave, ascended, 
and sent the Holy Spirit. They who hold the 
view just referred to limit their idea of the 
Church to what he initiated in His life, because 
usually they do not believe that He did these 
things. But, to those who do believe that the 
grave was not the end of His career, the matter 
presents a different aspect. To such, these sub- 
sequent events are essential to Christianity. The 
resurrection was of the very essence of Christ's 
redeeming work, being the evidence of His ac- 
cepted mediation, and the opening of that im- 
mortal life which He came to restore to the race 
for which He had made atonement. It makes 
His work a gospel, since without it there would 



WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 131 

be no reason to believe that He had not lived and 
died in vain, nor any reversal of the all-conquer- 
ing law of death. The gift of the Holy Ghost 
was also needed to give that spiritual illumination 
which was as necessary to the beginning of the 
Gospel's spread as to its continuance. So the 
Church could not be founded until these events 
had taken place, of which it was to preach the 
one in the power given by the other. 

It is, then, a superficial error to speak of 
Christ's founding the Church, as His immediate 
act, and violates the facts in the case. We can 
only speak of it during His life as a still future 
thing which He expressed when He said, "I 
will build my Church." For He did it mediately ; 
that is, others did it at His command and in this 
way : during His ministry, He was training se- 
lected men, by peculiar intimacy and constant 
instruction, for such a future task ; but chiefly 
did this training take place in the interviews 
after His resurrection, when, as we are told, He 
taught them regarding the Kingdom of God, for 
even the preceding years of intercourse could 
not have prepared them adequately for such a 
work. But when the series of events was fin- 
ished for the perpetuation of which they were 
to provide, when their training was at last com- 
pleted, when Christ had finally withdrawn from 
earth and the Holy Ghost came upon them, then 
these men, called the Apostles, founded the 
Church in accordance with the instructions re- 
ceived. 



132 WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 

This is what we mean by saying that we be- 
lieve in the Apostolic Church. We mean that 
the true and real Church is that planted and 
shaped by these men appointed thereto ; that, 
on the one hand, we recognize as normal no 
Christianity modeled upon any antecedent state 
of affairs, nor, on the other, can we recognize as 
lawful any Christianity that has arisen since. 
To us, that is the Church which derives its ori- 
gin from the apostolic action, and is in continu- 
ous organic succession from it. It follows, of 
course, that the Church must retain the charac- 
ter and form given it by these commissioned 
men ; that, just as that stream of Church life 
which is legitimate must come from the apostolic 
source, so any departure thence is a departure 
from the foundation laid by the only men ever 
authorized to formulate the belief or the institu- 
tions of Christianity. No one since has ever 
had the authority or the capacity to do this. 

Now, what is this apostolic Christianity, to 
which we are to conform, and whence alone we 
can trace any valid ecclesiastical pedigree ? 

We have not time, nor is it necessary to the 
scope to which we limit ourselves, to define this 
in detail. All that is proposed is, to seek its 
polity and its creed ; about which are the princi- 
pal divergencies between Christians at present, 
and which also really cover other points that may 
not at first seem to be involved. 

But, before proceeding, one broad issue must 



WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 1 33 

be met. It will be affirmed by many that apos- 
tolic Christianity is that which is laid down in 
apostolic writings, or that the New Testament is 
the only source of learning about it, so that we 
are shut up to its pages for the features that are 
to mark the Church. We have already referred 
to this principle, which is the Puritan position, 
though it is rarely applied with consistency ; for 
not only do they who claim it adhere to impor- 
tant features which cannot be found explicitly in 
the New Testament, but furthermore it is impos- 
sible to adhere to it under the changing condi- 
tions of succeeding ages. 

For instance, to apply it rigidly would, on the 
one hand, condemn those who fail to observe 
such practices as the kiss of peace, the agape, or 
love - feast before the Holy Communion, the 
anointing of the sick, and other customs still. 
These were clearly practiced in apostolic times, 
according to the New Testament, and, if com- 
plete conformity to its statements is essential, 
consistency would require that all who advocate 
this principle should resume them. v On the other 
hand, the rigid application of this rule would ex- 
clude customs adhered to by those who claim to 
follow it. Take, for instance, the practices of 
observing Sunday instead of Saturday; of bap- 
tizing infants ; of having services that are con- 
ducted with sermon, prayers, and hymns, without 
the Lord's Supper ; and the admission of women 
to the Communion. These are by no means 



134 WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 

plainly inculcated in the New Testament. Large 
bodies of Christians, who claim to be Bible Chris- 
tians, reject one or more of them, which shows 
that the matter cannot be settled on such au- 
thority alone, and that any warrant for these 
customs must rest upon some other argument 
than Biblical precept. On the other hand, no 
body of Christians either accepts or rejects them 
all. Each body makes a selection such as suits 
it, thereby resorting to some other criterion than 
that of the letter of the Bible. The only sect 
that approaches consistency is that of the Sev- 
enth Day Baptists, which gives up infant bap- 
tism and also Sunday observance. Others not 
only cling to these, but also to other practices 
that have no stronger warrant in the Scripture 
pages. 

The relation of the New Testament to these 
practices will be seen when we come to speak of 
the place of the Bible, but now we see that it is 
not such as some maintain, — the only source of 
deciding what is the fullness of apostolic Chris- 
tianity. 

Nor should we expect it to be so. Consider 
two facts. One is the origin of the New Testa- 
ment. It is composed of letters, or books, writ- 
ten by Apostles or their pupils after the Church 
had been founded by oral teaching. They were 
written during a period extending from twenty to 
seventy years subsequent to our Lord's Ascen- 
sion, for the purpose of instructing particular 



WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND t 135 

churches or persons regarding points that needed 
special treatment. Therefore it could not be ex- 
pected that they should explicitly contain every- 
thing that the Apostles wished to be remem- 
bered of all that they had taught in their preach- 
ing. Correspondence is meant to treat particu- 
lar topics, not to include everything in the mind 
of the writer, however important. 

Again, consider this. The whole Church was 
in its missionary stage, but some parts were 
peculiarly undeveloped, so that, even so far as 
passages in the New Testament are descriptive 
of the condition of affairs at the time, they can- 
not be shown to imply that this condition is to 
be regarded as final. This would be like affirm- 
ing that, from a letter of a missionary to some 
recent converts to-day, we could infer that the 
condition it indicated is the full realization of his 
teaching. 

All this shows that, in order to get a complete 
idea of the principles and practices of apostolic 
Christianity, we must add other data to the ex- 
plicit statements that we find in the New Testa- 
ment writings. Such are the hints or implica- 
tions which are contained in them, and which 
will often lead to unexpected results as regards 
some people ; as for instance those that relate to 
principles of ritual and government. Again, we 
must add the evidences of apostolic teachings af- 
forded by the literature and institutions of the 
early Church, which cannot be explained away on 



136 WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 

the theory of corrupt or willful additions, since 
we find them in existence too generally and too 
soon for such a supposition to be reasonable. 
The fruit of a tree is involved in the idea of the 
tree, and so a feature found in churches taught 
by apostolic men as soon as they take shape, 
must in all reason be regarded as having been in- 
tended by these men to be a factor in the Church 
as they would have it develop. 

This is the position of the Church of history, 
the Church to which we belong, and our warrant 
for the peculiarities that mark us, over against 
the bodies of fellow-Christians that differ from 
us. We claim, and, did the limits of this lecture 
permit, the claim would be substantiated, that our 
ways and principles are in conformity with that 
picture of the Apostolic Church which is gained 
from all the data in our possession. We do not 
claim, that is, that we know no source for guid- 
ance here but the written Scriptures. We be- 
lieve we have other sources, which do not con- 
flict with Biblical indications, but are harmonious 
with them. As has been said, our opponents all 
act upon the same principle in this or that re- 
spect. We only claim to be consistent, and to 
extend the principle in a reasonable way, and to 
a proper degree. 

But we may now dwell upon only the more 
fundamental features of that Apostolic Chris- 
tianity by which the Gospel received from Christ 
was to be perpetuated through the ages to come. 



WHAT DID CHRIST FOUXD? 1 37 

These are, the organization of Christians in a 
Church for the promotion of the Gospel and of 
mutual edification, with the right to legislate to 
these ends as expediency should demand, united 
by a ministry perpetuated through its highest 
order, and on the basis of a creed of accepted 
gospel facts. The Roman Catholic adds sub- 
mission to the Pope as an element of the Apos- 
tolic Church, the argument being that such has 
been the growth of Christianity. The reply is, 
that it has been the growth in that part of Chris- 
tendom under that particular see, and unknown 
elsewhere ; therefore it is as local and as uncath- 
olic as the Congregationalism of New England 
or the Presbyterianism of Scotland ; and those 
now addressed are supposed to need no refuta- 
tion of its claims. 

Until recently, it was not disputed that the 
Church is organized and united through its min- 
istry. But, about two hundred years ago, there 
arose in England a view which has obtained some 
currency in that country and America, being the 
theory of the Congregationalists, Unitarians, 
Universalists, and Baptists, often modified, how- 
ever, in practice. This position, so new and so 
local in Christendom, is that in the Church the 
only general bond of union is that invisible, and 
undoubtedly supreme one, of common relation- 
ship to Christ ; that the only organization is 
that of each several congregation, which has the 
power of appointing the ministry, and can be 



I38 WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 

subjected to no other laws than its own. This is 
the theory of Independency, or so-called Congre- 
gationalism, directly traversing the position held 
by all the rest of Christendom in all ages. 

The arguments for it are substantially two : 
namely, that the nature of Christianity requires 
exemption from laws and rules, allows only a 
spiritual brotherhood ; and that passages in the 
New Testament show, as for instance at Corinth, 
a state of affairs of this sort. To these argu- 
ments we reply, in general, that the former as- 
sumes an idea of Christianity which may well be 
scrutinized ; and that the latter assumes a cer- 
tain condition to be normal which perhaps was 
not. But it were best to advance the positive 
arguments for the organic view, which has the 
presumption in its favor as the undeviating prac- 
tice until this new view arose, and is the prevail- 
ing one still. 

In the first place, whatever may be said of 
some cases, we find others in the New Testa- 
ment where organic unity under Apostolic regi- 
men is clear. We find the Church to be more 
and more, as the years go on which the New 
Testament covers, a brotherhood that is ruled 
and ordered, each congregation being united with 
the whole body, and the ministry being qualified 
by others than the worshipers, that is, by Apos- 
tles, or those whom they selected as their agents. 

But this is all made the plainer by the fact that, 
as soon as we find Christendom in shape and at 



WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 1 39 

work, when we have many sources of informa- 
tion, it is found to be organized in this way ; and 
Independency, if it had ever existed anywhere, 
has entirely disappeared. It may be said that 
this was the result of a defection from original 
simplicity. But this is too much for us to be- 
lieve. We might find such a supposition plausi- 
ble after the lapse of a more protracted time, but 
it is not to be accepted as a reasonable explana- 
tion of a state of affairs that is universal within 
twenty or thirty years of St. John's lifetime, or 
less than a century after Pentecost. It implies 
a rapidity of corruption which there is no reason 
to believe in, which is contradicted by all the 
facts ; and a revolution so complete that it could 
not have become supreme, as it did, without 
awakening any protest in any land or place. 
That which was an undisputed rule at this time 
seems to us, beyond debate by intelligent men, 
the indication of the known wish and teaching 
of Apostolic men. 

Again, the question is settled by the object of 
the foundation of the Church. It was established 
to preach the Gospel, as well as to perpetuate 
the means of edifying believers, or the means of 
grace. But this demands concerted action, and 
that means organization. It is difficult to be- 
lieve that those founders should have given such 
a commission to their converts, and then left 
them incohesive, with no capacity for united ac- 
tion, no order of men to provide for the founda- 
tion of new congregations. 



140 WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 

The fact is, that this theory only thinks of the 
ministry as a means of edifying a Christianity 
already in existence. It was invented in such 
conditions where it was not called upon to sub- 
mit to the test of the Church's essential work. 
It is inconceivable how, on such a basis, the 
faith of that England where it arose could have 
come into being, or how the Church would ever 
have spread beyond the walls of the cities that 
Apostles visited. A Christianity thus begun 
would have had but the temporary life of certain 
local assemblies, which would soon have died out, 
leaving the memory of an abortive movement 
that had no machinery for its own perpetuation. 

This is confirmed by the practice of these very 
Independents when they would act upon the un- 
believing world. In that grandly successful mis- 
sionary work that their warm hearts have prose- 
cuted, they have had to abandon their own prin- 
ciple. Apart from any question of the needed 
degree of organization at home to prosecute the 
work, as soon as they found a mission, „with its 
one or more stations, they proceed to organize 
it, of very necessity, with a ruling and self-per- 
petuating ministry. They cannot leave these 
congregations to be isolated or autonomous, nor 
can they leave to each one the erection of its 
own ministry. So they unite them, have common 
legislative bodies, approve and qualify the clergy 
by clergymen, thus doing exactly what the old 
Church has done. This would seem to show 



WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 14 1 

that it is the very law of the life of Christianity 
that for its work there must be organized union, 
and a directing ministry that passes upon the 
fitness, and confers the title, of those who seek 
to enter its ranks. Anything that is thus the 
law of the life of Christianity is a part of it, and 
must have been in intent, as all our data show it 
was in fact, and as the Church has ever said it 
was, the teaching of the Apostles. 

But this is not all. The Church is found, at a 
time when it could only have been due to Apos- 
tolic origin, legislating in regard to its ritual and 
customs and ordinances, and doing so with the 
expectation that such rules should be obeyed. 
That is, the ideal Church has the right to reg- 
ulate its life according to indications of expedi- 
ency. This is denied by those who say that 
nothing is binding which is not laid down in 
Scripture. But that is not only an absurdity for 
a society that was founded to work in all times 
and all places ; it is that bondage which St. Paul 
had to rebuke as the leaven of Judaism, the re- 
turn from the New Testament to the Old, im- 
parting into the New what is not there, but is 
in the Pentateuch only, minute directions for all 
things. It is one of the curiosities of human ec- 
centricity that they who say so much about lib- 
erty in Christ, and assail us Churchmen as vic- 
tims to legalism, base their whole argument and 
action upon that very principle, and deny to 
Christendom the freedom to legislate for its 



142 WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 

needs. For this is Christian liberty, the right to 
adapt measures to emergencies, under the guid- 
ance of God ; and it carries with it the duty of 
the individual to submit, unless he can say that 
any law is against the written word of God. 

But it may be added, as regards this question 
of liberty, that it is as impossible under the In- 
dependent theory as under that pure democracy 
that it imitates in the state. Liberty means 
protection of rights, safeguards against tempo- 
rary or local tyrannies, and this can only come 
with constitutional forms, which in turn come 
with concerted organization and established 
order. An unorganized Christianity might be 
endurable if all Christians were saints. It would 
be intolerable as they are, intolerable to the laity, 
and utterly so to the ministry, as so many are 
finding out ; who either modify this Indepen- 
dency while nominally adhering to it, or leave 
it for the generous shelter of such a condition as 
the usual form of Christianity affords. " The 
liberty wherewith Christ has made us free " is not 
found where numbers rule immediately, where 
transient majorities produce the most galling 
tyrannies ; but it is only found, if at all, where 
settled principles, recognized rights, and organic 
forms of law, in church or state, can be appealed 
to and enforced against the local or widespread 
despotisms of the hour. 

For reasons thus given, all but a slight fraction 
of Christendom has lived without the suggestion 



WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 1 43 

of so crippling an idea as the erratic and provin- 
cial principle of Independency. But, while all 
the Church with this exception holds to organi- 
zation perpetuated through its ministry, there is 
a part of Protestantism which holds to a theory 
that it is perpetuated through the Presbyters, 
than whom it is claimed that no higher officer 
is allowable. This is Presbyterianism, or the 
polity of the Protestants in some countries, — 
France, Switzerland, the Rhinelands, and Scot- 
land, as well as those among us who are con- 
nected with them. To it, the general usage of 
Christendom replies that there was established in 
the Apostolic Church a higher office, called the 
Episcopate, to which alone is committed the 
prerogative of ordaining. Both sides, let it be 
noted, hold to the "Apostolic Succession." That 
is a term criticised as often ignorantly as intelli- 
gently. It really means only this, that the order 
of ministers in the Church does not and cannot 
begin by any one taking the ministry upon him- 
self, or by any layman giving it to him, as Inde- 
pendency holds ; but was begun by the Apostles 
appointing the first ministers, who appointed 
their successors in turn. That is, the ministry, 
rightly and truly, is a succession of a corpora- 
tion, or clerical body, in the Church, initiated by 
the Apostles. Now, the Presbyterian theory, of 
course, involves this when it says that only pres- 
byters can make presbyters, and that laymen 
cannot. But it differs from the usual position of 



144 WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 

Christendom in denying that this succession is 
to be kept up through ordination by bishops. 

Our reasons for holding to this are, first, that 
the principle is, we believe, found in the Apos- 
tolic writings. We find there, not that any min- 
isters could ordain, but only designated and qual- 
ified ones. If it is said that this interpretation 
is not clear, we then add that it is made so to us 
by what we find to be the rule of the primitive 
Christians. As soon as we find a local church 
equipped in any land, it has a bishop. As, one 
by one, the various parts of Christendom come 
out of the misty days of their origin, and have a 
literature and institutions, they are all found with 
this office, to which ordaining and ruling are re- 
stricted. It is the only kind of ministry known 
in those days when the voices of men like John 
and Paul and Peter were hardly still. 

This is explained by some as being only a 
growth. Suppose it was so. Does not the 
growth of a tree show the intention of the tree ? 
If it bear apples, then it was planted to bear ap- 
pies ; and so, if the Church developed into Episco- 
pacy, it must have been so shaped that it would. 
The only alternative is to say that Episcopacy 
is a corrupt growth, a violation of the Apos- 
tolic intention. This is to us inadmissible, for 
two reasons : on the one hand, we do not see 
any warrant for accusing those Christians of fall- 
ing into a corruption so general and so notable 
in less than half a century after St. John's 



WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 1 45 

death ; and on the other, it would have been not 
only a corruption, but a revolution ; which, as 
has been said regarding organization, cannot rea- 
sonably be believed to have taken place with no 
known resistance, no recorded appeal from it. 
So devoted and so widely extended a body of 
men, as Christians were then, do not become sub- 
jects of an unwarranted usurpation, which Epis- 
copacy was, if not of original intention. 

However, whether a growth, or wholly or in 
part an imposition by Apostolic authority, Epis- 
copacy is the law of the Church's life as much 
as organization is. Suppose any outsider were 
asked this question, What is the peculiarity of 
the Christian ministry, as distinct from that of 
the Jews or Mohammedans or any other religious 
system, when all its extent is considered ? Would 
he not have to reply that its peculiarity is that it 
has bishops ? The exceptions are too local and 
temporary to affect the fact that such has been 
the historical characteristic of the Christian min- 
istry. But beyond this, in another sense, it is 
the law of the Church's life. It is necessary to 
efficiency. Just as it is difficult to see how Chris- 
tianity could have survived its foundation if not 
organized, so is it difficult to see how it could 
have been spread without any appointing and 
directing office. " What is everybody's business 
is nobody's business " is as true in religious as 
in other matters. And it has never been spread 
save on this principle. Even they who deny it, 



146 WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 

or its extreme application, come back to it when 
they appoint superintendents of districts, or di- 
rectors of missionary work, — that is, set clergy- 
men over clergymen. The most signal instance 
is that of the great Methodist body, whose noble 
work for Christ has been efficient because of 
what its originators saw to be necessary, — supe- 
rior and ordaining officers, whom they call bish- 
ops, though others who do the same thing do 
not use the term. The difference between our 
idea of Episcopacy, as a supervising order, and 
theirs, is that we hold that these officers can 
only be appointed by those of the same rank, 
who have power to do so, derived in succession 
from the Apostolic source of the ministry as the 
only adequate one. They hold that this order 
can be created at any time without that condi- 
tion ; that is, that " the greater can be blessed of 
the less," the superior commissioned by the infe- 
rior, which to us seems illogical and inconsistent. 

So far we have seen that the Apostolic idea of 
the Church is that of an organization united by 
a ministry perpetuated from Apostolic initiation 
through an order set apart for the purpose. If 
this is so, then to that idea we should conform, 
in that succession we should be, such a ministry 
we should have. 

But how is it with those Christians that are 
not so situated ? Here we meet a perennial and 
a much - vexed question. It is important, and 
candor will not allow it to be ignored. Nor is it 



WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 14/ 

right to do so when we know how many saintly 
lives are lived under other forms of Christian pol- 
ity, how great and unsurpassed a work their ad- 
herents have done for God's glory and for man's 
welfare. In this land, as far as visible effects go, 
that work is beyond what has been done by those 
who adhere to the Apostolic principle, as we have 
denned it. 

Now, on the one hand, it will not do to say 
that this is a matter of no consequence. A 
newly originated body, due to merely human ac- 
tion, cannot occupy the same position as one 
that traces its organic life back to the action of 
inspired Apostles at Pentecost ; nor can depar- 
ture from a divine standard ever be a matter of 
indifference. So, if this idea of the Church's 
organization is the norm, only the superficial can 
say that we might as well not have bishops as 
have them. If it is the wish of Christ, learned 
through the Apostolic action, there must be a 
reason for Episcopacy. As a distinguished re- 
cent defender of the new departure has said, it 
was " a revolution " when some Protestants gave 
it up ; and a revolution, however justifiable when 
necessary, means, at the best, that which should 
not have been, if avoidable. 

Yet, while ethics forbid us to admit that this 
departure is a matter of no consequence, before 
we can tell what the consequences are we must 
take into consideration some important facts. 

First, we must ascertain how far we know the 



I48 WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 

object and value of this normal form of ministry. 
Unless we know exactly all its functions, and all 
that depends upon it, we cannot tell what is lack- 
ing where it is absent. Surely, we must not 
hastily claim to know this. Only God knows 
all the reasons for anything He does, and there- 
fore no one of us can tell exhaustively what He 
makes dependent upon the matter of polity, and 
what He does not. 

Again, we need to consider the reasons for de- 
parture from the norm, and to give to them their 
proper weight. Revolution is sometimes clearly 
justifiable ; and so, in the circumstances of any 
revolt against established order, there may be an 
element of justifiability in God's sight. Perhaps 
the order revolted against has to bear some of 
the blame in the matter, if blame there be. 

Still further, we must consider how far the his- 
tory of such bodies may have vindicated their 
right to exist. They who have saved many souls 
and evangelized a land are not to be set aside as 
having no standing in court. Again, we must 
look at them in the light of the saints that hal- 
low their history, of the men among them who, 
whether ordained or not, are yet prophets of God, 
in the light of their success in doing just what 
the Church was sent to do ; and in that of the 
favor of God, when He has, as St. Peter says, 
"given unto them the Holy Ghost, as well as 
unto us." 

Now, in presence of these and still other con- 



WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 149 

siderations that might be adduced, we cannot, so 
summarily as some imagine, define the results of 
that departure, which is so prevalent about us, 
from the regular polity of the Church. But all 
this includes a wider truth, that we can never de- 
termine the results of departure from any norm 
set forth by God or Christ, or the Apostles. The 
fact is that life is wider than logic, and that we 
cannot mete out condemnation or praise by a 
process of syllogisms. There are too many un- 
known factors, too many indeterminate ones, in 
any problem of human conduct, for us to reduce 
it to terms of mathematical precision. We can 
only make positive affirmations of what should 
be. We cannot define the consequences of the 
disregard thereof. For instance, as to the very 
fundamental matter of belief in Christ, the wis- 
est and soundest differ as to the results of its 
absence in the cases of heathen, or ignorant or 
blinded men. How absurd, then, to dogmatize, 
as so many Christians do, in respect to the con- 
sequences of disregard of some ordinance or cus- 
tom ! All of us must learn to see that in fact 
we know nothing about negatives. The message 
of Christianity is to say what will happen if cer- 
tain conditions are met, not to define what will 
happen if they are not. The Church is like a 
herald sent to announce good news. It is not 
commissioned to announce the results of not 
heeding it in any particular case. It cannot do 
this, since in each case the decision turns upon 



1 5 O WHA T DID CHRIS T FO UND ? 

facts known only to " God who searcheth the 
heart." 

Thus has the Church spoken, and thus does 
our branch of it speak. The creeds only make 
positive statements : they make no reference to 
alternatives ; and the other standards only say 
what we believe to be right and true and normal. 
Consequently, any Churchman who knows the 
spirit and letter of his Church will, by his strong- 
est affirmations, mean only to say what he be- 
lieves to be the ideal, and will not presume to be 
wiser than the Church by defining the degree of 
loss incurred by those who revolt against any 
rule, or dispense with any ordinance, or deny any 
tenet. It is for no one less than God to settle 
that : no one less can do it ; and He may know 
of reasons for approval when we should condemn, 
or of condemnation when we might approve. 
" Many that are last shall be first, and the first 
last." So, our claim can only be, that we stand 
in this land for a form of Church life which is 
that of a fully equipped Christianity. We dare 
not say, for we have no authority for it in the 
Church's utterances, that we stand for an abso- 
lute condition of the divine favor. But we do 
say that we stand for what is necessary to eccle- 
siastical efficiency and completeness. We be- 
lieve in adhering to the ideal, since we can ; and 
we mean to do so, convinced that, whether we 
know its value or not, it is the safe and the ob- 
ligatory way ; and for the sake of this principle, 



WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 151 

and not out of narrowness, we cannot compro- 
mise this position, nor lower our standard. 

Passing over other elements in the Apostolic 
norm, as not so disputed, we now come to the 
basis of confessional union which it sets forth. 
We believe it to be, in conformity with our pre- 
vious definition of Christianity, union upon a 
creed of facts. We have seen how this is nec- 
essary to make our faith a Gospel. Let us now 
see how it is necessary to any union among be- 
lievers. 

Creeds arose from the necessity of defining 
the Gospel which the Church preaches. Origi- 
nally, it was stated in the baptismal formula. 
That God is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is the 
Good News. But dissensions and errors called 
for more definiteness if there was to be any real 
harmony. It is ever so. Yet here we must dis- 
tinguish. 

It has been held, and generally is held around 
us, that this amplification of the baptismal re- 
quirement must be a detailing of doctrinal defi- 
nitions. This is so deeply ingrained in the minds 
both of believers and of unbelievers that it is 
difficult to make it clear how undesirable, how 
un-apostolic it is, and how different is the posi- 
tion of those who repudiate it. 

Its prevalence is due to the prevalence of the 
idea at the bottom of sectarianism. That is the 
idea of which we spoke when dealing with the 
nature of Christianity, namely, the exaggera- 



1$2 WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 

tion of the importance of correctness of opinion ; 
and an equally prevalent conception that this is 
attainable, and therefore obligatory. It has led 
to the idea that a Christian ought to hold fault- 
less doctrines, or correct inferences from the 
faith once delivered, and that believers must be 
united in that manner. Hence arose sects or 
bodies of believers who thought that they had 
reached ultimate correctness upon this or that 
point ; and who, because the Church around 
would not accept its formulas, set up their own 
tabernacles, formed their own societies, to pro- 
tect and advocate, these peculiar tenets. Of 
course, each one devised its own creed, to form 
the basis of its peculiar membership as the body 
that held the true message of Christianity to the 
world. This same process has also worked in 
churches, or ancient and national organizations, 
which, in measure as they follow it, assume the 
sect position. This is the case eminently with 
Rome, whose creed and catechism are elabo- 
rately doctrinal, and consist of theological prop- 
ositions that define its particular dogmas. This 
process has been so general that it has come to 
be usually regarded as the law of religious organ- 
ization, the justification of separations among 
Christians. It has led friends and foes to think 
that Christendom is, and should be, committed to 
the principle of unity in opinion among those 
who worship together. 

But there is about this position the in super- 



WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 153 

able difficulty that it makes catholicity impossi- 
ble. Men will not agree in opinion. That is 
evident, and it is not wrong. Since God has 
constituted us differently in respect of mental 
powers and characteristics, we cannot be ex- 
pected either to look at admitted facts in the 
same way, or equally to emphasize different ele- 
ments in a common belief. This latter is per- 
haps the most fruitful source of variations in 
opinion, and it simply cannot be avoided ; for 
men are so made that one will attach more im- 
portance to this factor, another to that, in a 
Christianity that all may hold alike. 

And beyond this, the principle of agreement 
in doctrinal confessions not only renders catho- 
licity impossible at any given time, but also pre- 
vents it in succeeding generations. Christians 
surely make progress in their doctrines, or their 
apprehensions of their faith, with advance in edu- 
cation and spiritual life ; and what is thus true 
of an individual is just as true of the whole body 
of believers. So, on the basis of doctrinal defini- 
tions being the bond of unity, the Church would 
be resolved into a series of rising and falling 
bodies ; for, if they who believe could agree at 
any one time, still there would be, of necessity, 
a process of successive dissolutions and reform- 
ations. No union formed on that principle can 
outlive the prevalence of transient phases of re- 
ligious thought. This is the reason why no sect 
can endure, for a sect means an organization 



154 WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 

based on agreement in some local and tempo- 
rary notion. 

But all this should not be. We should expect 
that one essential feature of the Church would 
be catholicity. Surely Christ meant His disci- 
pleship for all sorts and conditions of men and 
for all the ages. Then we should expect that 
the basis of union would be acceptance of His 
Gospel, independently of differences as to em- 
phasis of its parts, or as to inborn tendencies in 
its apprehension. There would seem to be no 
reason why they should not worship together, 
and use the same ordinances, who accept Him 
and His work, though they may vary in opinion. 
To put this concretely, some men will always 
make more of God's sovereignty, others more of 
man's freedom. Some will make more of sub- 
jective religion, others of its outward aspects. 
Some will emphasize the personal element, oth- 
ers the institutional. Some will make more of 
feeling, others of action or conduct, others still 
of intelligence. The divisions have usually oc- 
curred on matters like these, and so Christianity 
has been broken up. But certainly there is no 
more warrant for destroying its unity because of 
such differences than there would be for divid- 
ing the state because of differences of parties, 
or the family because of varieties of opinion 
there. In one case as in the other, comprehen- 
siveness would seem possible and necessary. 

And likewise should the Church be catholic 



WHA T DID CHRIST FOUND ? I 5 5 

in successive stages of progress. It ought to be 
a body which could continue to proclaim one 
message of Christ and His Apostles from cen- 
tury to century, and join in one changeless con- 
fession, without dissolution when fuller thought 
should come, or new glimpses of the meaning of 
the Gospel ; a body that should have room for, 
and be adaptable to, larger and deeper realiza- 
tions of what is meant in the Gospel of Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost ; a body which could live 
on without any necessity of disintegration and 
reconstitution, as the Spirit leads its members 
more and more into the truth. But this is im- 
possible if you insist that the confessional unity 
among Christians shall be on the basis of a com- 
mon explanation of the gospel facts, or of an 
agreement upon theories of that redemption in 
which we all believe. 

But it is possible if based on a confession of 
facts in which all can agree, though they differ 
in doctrines ; and that this is the idea of the 
Church, that Apostles so preached Christianity, 
and that Paul so summed up the Gospel, we have 
seen in our second lecture. Let it now suffice 
to add a few more words. As we have seen, it 
soon became apparent that converts, as well as 
others, needed some closer statement of the facts 
of the Gospel than only the baptismal formula, 
and since, because of local influences, one place 
called for one detail, another for another, many 
creeds arose. Yet all were short, and merely 



I 56 WHA T DID CHRIST FOUND ? 

statements of simple verities regarding Christ's 
work. But a process of unification speedily be- 
gan, and at length all Christians came to unite 
upon that statement which we call the Apostles' 
Creed, which was expanded into the so-called 
Nicene, as an enumeration of facts in which, 
without imposing any explanations of them, the 
Church united as the embodiment of the Chris- 
tianity taught by Apostles, and to be held in all 
lands and ages. Upon it believers have been 
agreed ever since, with unimportant exceptions. 
In its place there can be none other devised. 
There is a good deal said about new creeds. 
Many cry for them. A distinguished man has 
said there should be a new one every seven 
years. This is all based upon the idea that 
creeds for Christians are to express their opin- 
ions about the Gospel. In that case, of course, 
a new one would be needed, not only for every 
day that a new light comes, but for every new 
Christian made. But to a creed of the facts of 
Christianity there can be no additions, in it no 
change ; for, while our apprehension of these 
facts may be enlarged, they remain changeless. 
If, as the Church founded by Apostles holds, 
these creeds which it has used for ages are a 
true summary of Christianity, then they will 
suffice to the end of that Church's history, for 
Jesus Christ is " the same yesterday, to-day, and 
forever." 

It is true, we are speaking of an ideal that has 



WHA T DID CHRIS T 10 UA D? I 5 7 

been rarely realized, if at all, since long-distant 
days. Yet it is the ideal set forth by Apostles, 
and it is of value to show what it is, as aiding 
us in our search for an ecclesiastical home in a 
divided Christianity. We believe that our own 
Church meets the norm thus presented, and that 
it alone thus conforms to the Apostolic intention, 
owing to the kind Providence of God. 

For baptism or admission to Church member- 
ship, it only asks assent to that confession which 
is an epitome of the gospel facts ; and surely a 
Church's idea of essentials may be found in what 
admits to its privileges. For the supreme priv- 
ilege of the Holy Communion it is still the same, 
except that they who come to it are expected 
to be able to join in the fuller statement of the 
Nicene Creed, which adds nothing to the other. 
To show still further how the matter is regarded, 
we are told only that excommunication, or exclu- 
sion from Church privileges, is to be visited 
upon evil livers and unforgiving persons. That 
is, it only punishes moral error, not mental mis- 
takes. As long as one lives consistently, joins 
in the service, and in the confession of the veri- 
ties held to constitute the Gospel, he cannot be 
touched for his differences of opinion from oth- 
ers on any point. 

Now this is significant enough to detain us a 
moment, for it shows the position of our Church 
as to what should be the ground of separation, 
if separation there must be. It is not disagree- 



158 WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 

ment in convictions, as has usually been main- 
tained, but sinful and unworthy conduct. The 
former principle has led to the exclusion from 
privileges and to the persecution of many who 
adorned the Gospel of God our Saviour by their 
lives, and broken up the fellowship of those who 
had in common " the mind which was in Christ 
Jesus ; " while it has also led to tolerating and 
honoring as many who were utterly unworthy, 
simply because of their zeal for an imagined or- 
thodoxy. Not that errors of opinion are under- 
estimated by us, but they are not regarded as so 
serious as errors of life. That is, vagaries of be- 
lief on the part of sincere followers of Christ are 
not to be allowed to sever ties half as soon as 
cruelty, or sordidness, or dishonesty, or mean- 
ness, or untruthfulness, in those who only are 
His followers in profession. Is not this, the po- 
sition of our Church, the true one, the one Christ 
would have taken ? Is it not the way in which 
Apostles looked at the matter? See how the 
Christians of their day were divided. They were 
far more divided than Christians are now. They 
disagreed as to circumcision, and Sabbath obser- 
vance, and many other fundamental points of 
ceremonial. They disagreed as to very impor- 
tant doctrines, and even as to St. Paul's Apostle- 
ship. Yet they lived together. They that erred 
in opinion were instructed ; but it was they who 
sinned, as the man in Corinth, who alone were 
excluded from communion and fellowship. That 



WHA T DID CHRIST FOUND ? 1 59 

is, the practice of the Church at that time shows 
that, in an Apostolic Church and in a Scriptural 
Church, immorality is the fundamental reason 
for the rupture of brotherly relations ; that 
" Bible Christians," as some call themselves, 
have no warrant in their own position for their 
schisms and their separations ; and that the New 
Testament idea of comprehensiveness of opinion 
is wider than they seem ever to remember, wider 
indeed than Christians at the present day seem 
able to attain in practice. Would that Chris- 
tians had always remembered this, and instead 
of separating from others because of their dis- 
sent from this or that doctrine, or their different 
estimate of this or that ordinance, had been ever 
willing to kneel side by side with those who held 
the same Gospel and used the same means of 
grace, allowing only sin and enmity, that is, 
moral heresy, to be a bar to fellowship and sym- 
pathy ! 

As to the Thirty-nine Articles, which may be 
thought to contradict this assertion in regard to 
the position of this Church, suffice it to say that 
they are not terms of membership or conditions 
of privilege. They are only for the clergy in 
their work as teachers. They are to guide them 
in their utterances, to mark limits that individual 
opinion is not to transcend, and are also their 
protection against the tyranny of waves of local 
or temporary opinion. Beyond this, they can be 
changed at any time. Instead of being doctrinal 



l6o WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 

creeds, they are not creeds at all ; are never re- 
cited ; are not part of the Prayer Book, but of 
the Ordinal ; and are no more the Church's con- 
fession than they are its message. They are 
transient regulations for our ministry in their in- 
struction. 

This is the reason why we believe that the po- 
sition that we occupy is the only possible basis 
of Christian union. There is a healthy desire 
for a cessation of divisions among those who are 
so really one in spirit and in faith. Our Church, 
through its chief pastors, has set forth its idea 
of reunion, as based upon these two features of 
Apostolic Christianity, — the normal form of the 
ministry, and agreement in the ancient creeds. 
We do not mean to say that all must be swal- 
lowed up by us, as some think ; but that as to 
polity, if there is to be organic union, it can only 
be upon common acceptance of the old ways. 
This would seem obvious, since no general agree- 
ment can be expected upon any newer or any 
local form. But what lies back of that, and is 
more important, because more fundamental, is 
that unity can only be upon an agreement of 
confession as to the Gospel, of which these 
creeds are the only general and undisputed 
statement. Any other agreement is impossible 
and not to be desired, for it would mean sup- 
pression of convictions, and ignoring of unavoid- 
able differences. But all Christians can agree 
upon the facts of the Gospel. All bodies, or all 



WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND* l6l 

important ones, do hold them in common. And 
there is no reason why they should not come to- 
gether upon them, agreeing to disagree on minor 
matters, and loving each other none the less. 
This will be the first great step ; after that we 
think that organic union should ensue in com- 
mon acceptance of the ancient and original min- 
istry, against which some have revolted for rea- 
sons which, as we think, no longer hold good, 
however cogent they may once have been. 

Whether this will happen, however, we know 
not. It is hardly to be expected, in view of the 
tenacity of human opinions, the strength of 
many bodies, and other difficulties that arise. 
Yet, whether it happens or not, this is our mis- 
sion in this land, as we are persuaded, to rep- 
resent and commend the normal regimen and 
creed of Apostolic Christianity. Others have a 
great work behind them, and are doing a great 
work now. But we believe it our duty to adhere 
to our position of upholding, not only the full 
equipment of a Church, but also that manner of 
agreement among followers of the Lord Jesus 
Christ which alone was intended in the Church, 
is the only hope of the reunion of true followers 
of the Saviour, and the only way in which one 
Gospel can be preached to all sorts and condi- 
tions of men. 

Stand up bravely for this, the idea of the 
Church. ft is not always understood. Many 
within the Church fail to understand the nature 



1 62 WHA T DID CHRIST FOUND ? 

of their union and the fullness of their freedom. 
They, too, seem to think that all must agree. 
They want all to hold their particular shibboleths, 
belong to their especial party. But this is akin to 
wishing that all citizens be compelled to be Dem- 
ocrats or Republicans, which is a sin against the 
idea of the state. Yet it is no more absurd than 
the endeavor to make all in the Church of one 
school of thought. Unity is only feasible upon 
common institutions and undisputed facts, out- 
side of which are allowed wide divergencies. Let 
no one narrow this liberty. Resist all who would 
narrow it, whatever be the ground they take. 
While all others are free to look at things in 
their own way, each is as free in his way ; and 
the Church and all its ways and the creeds be- 
long to each as much as to all. Among those who 
use them and are loyal to them, no one has the 
prerogative of judging or setting up a standard 
for another. Repudiate such an attempt as a 
tyranny that violates Church principles. 

But especially is this peculiarity of our Church 
misapprehended by those without. They can- 
not understand how we, High Churchmen and 
Low Churchmen and Broad Churchmen, can sin- 
cerely regard each other as brothers. They do 
not believe we are really united, and think us un- 
candid, or indifferent to great principles. Out- 
siders ask : " How can you expect us to come to 
you as a relief for our divisions ? Settle your 
own differences first." To which the Churchman 



WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 1 63 

answers : " We do not propose to settle our dif- 
ferences. It is our glory that we can be breth- 
ren and work together without obliterating them. 
What we hold in common unites us. What we 
differ upon does not separate us." It is some- 
times trying to us if some brother Churchman is 
carried away by what seems, to the general senti- 
ment of our communion, to be superstitious or 
rationalistic ; and our principle is undoubtedly 
put to severe tests. But men who are trust- 
worthy and devoted, living but to do Christ's 
work, we cannot exclude from our sympathy. 
What is far more trying, and tests more violently 
the bond of unity, is such things as deceitfulness 
or bigotry or self-righteousness. These, to a true 
Churchman, cause the most regret, the strongest 
aversion, and exert a repulsion stronger than any 
party ties or theological lines can overcome. He 
who looks at the question in this way will find 
that it is no disadvantage, as some imagine, but 
is on the contrary a satisfaction, to be in a 
Church where issues, on which so many else- 
where separate, cause no divisions among true 
followers of the one Lord ; where deep questions 
that are closed elsewhere are regarded as open 
to study ; and where we can not only hold fellow- 
ship with diverse Christian minds as well as with 
kindred ones, but also can peaceably discuss 
great themes in allowable controversy. So it is 
that we, of all shades of thought, holding to all 
forms of opinion, widely differing on deep things, 



164 WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 

can yet live and worship and work in the unity 
of a common creed, and can in sincerity, as with- 
out enmity, join in the same Supper of the Lord, 
in the same hymns of praise. We would not 
have all think alike, nor require silence upon 
matters that are open, within the Church's limits ; 
for by so doing we should lose many whose fel- 
lowship we prize, suppress many a mental activ- 
ity that enriches piety, and secure uniformity 
only by a process of impoverishment. 

What do you agree in, then ? is asked. We 
agree in that which is enough to bind any men 
together, in that which has bound the Church 
together through the ages in the common creed 
of Christendom. This question was once asked 
at a discussion among some clergymen and lay- 
men of the Church of England when wide di- 
vergence was displayed among the former. At 
length a layman said, " How can you expect us 
of the laity to heed you when you are so much at 
variance ? Do you ministers of the Church agree 
in anything? If so, on what are you really 
united ? What do you believe ? " Then up rose 
that great prophet, Frederick Denison Maurice, 
and impetuously but solemnly said : " We be- 
lieve in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of 
Heaven and Earth ; and in Jesus Christ, His only 
Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy 
Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary ; suffered under 
Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried ; 
He descended into Hell ; the third day He rose 



WHAT DID CHRIST FOUND? 165 

again from the dead ; He ascended into Heaven, 
and sitteth on the right hand of God, the Father 
Almighty ; from thence He shall come to judge 
the quick and the dead. We believe in the 
Holy Ghost ; the Holy Catholic Church, the Com- 
munion of Saints ; the Forgiveness of sins ; the 
Resurrection of the body ; and the Life everlast- 



ing. 



And this answer, which was sufficient for that 
inquirer, is sufficient answer to whomsoever asks 
us for what we, who differ on so many points, 
hold in common. It is that Gospel in which we 
are one, and in which all may be one ; the suf- 
ficient summary of what Apostles founded the 
Church to confess and to preach to every crea- 
ture ; sufficient to guide and to sustain us as we 
walk by faith and not by sight in " the way that 
leadeth unto life." 



LECTURE VI. 

WHAT IS THEOLOGY ? 

" Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Sav- 
iour Jesus Christ : to Him be glory." — 2 Pet. iii. 18. 

The Church of Christ has a twofold duty to 
fulfill. On the one hand is its practical duty : 
to spread the Gospel through the world, and 
build up the Kingdom of God in the hearts of 
men. On the other is its intellectual duty : to 
apprehend more and more fully the wealth that 
is in that Gospel, to gain a deeper insight into 
the significance of the facts that constitute it. 
This is Theology. 

It is not the aim of this lecture to teach The- 
ology, which is a subject not only too extensive, 
but also one that can hardly be expected to re- 
ceive in detail the attention of those addressed, 
since it requires a training and a study that can 
only be looked for in those who are especially 
called thereto. The laity may be, but need not 
be, theologians in this Church to which we be- 
long. The reasons for this will be manifest as 
we proceed. 

But the purpose of this lecture is to state what 
Theology is, its nature, its aim, and its achieve- 



WHAT IS THEOLOGY? 1 67 

ments, as well as possible within the limits at 
our command. In so doing, we must recur 
again to the truth dwelt upon in defining Chris- 
tianity, for, as was then said, all other topics are 
affected by that definition. We saw that Chris- 
tianity is a collection of facts, and that faith is 
resting upon them. Now it is to be expected 
that men, constituted as they are, would en- 
deavor to understand these facts which were 
committed to the Church for proclamation by 
the Apostolic men who founded it. The mere 
power of curiosity, the desire for intelligent 
faith and clearer knowledge, would make this 
certain to occur. They who would oppose this 
desire only fight against the wind. Men will 
not cease to inquire, and though some may, in 
unnecessary despair, say that it is of no use, 
and others, in a spirit of skepticism, that it is 
dealing but with words or dreams ; the Christian 
will ever strive after a full and systematic under- 
standing of his faith, not from mere curiosity, 
for this inquiry will always be pushed, as it 
always has been, from a higher motive, — from 
duty. A sense of duty has been at the bottom 
of all theological labor in the earnest and holy 
minds of the past. And this duty is twofold. 
In the first place, it is a duty, for God's sake, 
to fathom more deeply the revelation in Christ. 
This is a treasure to be prized and all its beauty 
known. If it be a disclosure of God and His 
ways, honor to Him requires us to learn all that 



1 68 WHAT IS THEOLOGY? 

it can tell us. In the second place, the proper 
preaching of the Gospel demands the study of 
Theology. That preaching must be as clear and 
as harmonious as possible, made adaptable to 
varied minds and ages, fitted for those of ad- 
vanced, as well as those of undeveloped! stages 
of culture. But this means that the Gospel, to 
be thus proclaimed, must be thought upon, its 
factors developed by reflection, its implications 
discovered by investigation. 

Therefore, in any event, this study of the veri- 
ties of the faith would have been obligatory. 
Whatever the career of the Church, however 
normal or unruffled, still the very inherent spirit 
of Christianity would have led of necessity to 
theological inquiry. 

But the history of the Church has not been 
normal. It has been a history of conflict without 
and within ; of antagonism with those who have 
rejected it, and of peril at the hands of those who 
have misinterpreted it. The faith has needed 
defining for its protection, and the exercise of 
solicitude to avert corruptions, whether by denial 
of the true, or by addition of the false. This 
means laborious study. No one's opinion who 
has not considered the matter in issue is of value 
on any subject. The study of theology has been 
the effort to protect and expound those Christian 
verities which are " the power of God unto salva- 
tion." Christian thinking and living — for living 
is based upon thinking — have gone astray, far 



WHAT IS THEOLOGY? 1 69 

enough and often enough, and perhaps theolog- 
ical effort has at times done the same ; but who 
can tell how far this wandering would have gone 
if there had been no Theology ? This is, then, 
the intellectual task of the Church, as distinct 
from its practical one, a work parallel and con- 
current with its labor in the world and in the 
hearts of men ; and it is not surprising that, as 
in these other respects, so in this one, the work 
has not been perfectly done. Yet who will say 
that it were better had none of these tasks been 
undertaken ? 

In approaching the theme, there comes at 
once before our minds the vastness of the field 
denoted by the word "Theology." Its literature 
is of such extent that it is almost appalling. It 
probably exceeds that of any other department 
of human activity. For ages it was almost the 
only literature produced. To-day it is that 
branch to which more volumes are annually 
added than to any other. Some tell us that re- 
ligion is dying out, and that interest in it is on 
the wane. It does not look so, when we see the 
proportion of work done by the printing-press in 
its behalf in every land. 

This literature may be divided into several 
great departments. These are : Exegetical Theol- 
ogy, which deals with the documents of Chris- 
tianity ; Historical, which deals with its prepara- 
tion and its career ; Practical, which treats of the 
application of it, including the pastoral work and 



170 WHAT IS THEOLOGY? 

worship ; Evidential, or that which defends and 
vindicates the faith ; and Doctrinal, or that which 
discusses its tenets. This last is what is usually 
meant by the term Theology, and is often called 
Systematic Divinity or Dogmatic Theology. In 
this department, also, the work achieved has been 
the most extensive, and the most intellectually 
eminent. There the greatest minds have done 
their greatest work, and have won an almost peer- 
less distinction. Whatever may be said of other 
human activity in the realm of thought, or how- 
ever we may agree with them, such men as Ori- 
gen and Athanasius, Augustine and Anselm, have 
few fellows and no superiors. They have dealt 
with the highest themes to which the mind can 
address itself ; and, however successful we may 
think the effort, we must admit that its partici- 
pants have been giants. It has had workers of all 
schools of thought, and among all sorts of men. 
It has made serviceable to itself every tongue 
that has been capable of serving it, every gift that 
man possesses, every science that he has devised, 
every art that progress has evolved. Now, what 
is it all worth ? Has all this work been in vain ? 
Is all this literature only of such stuff as dreams 
are made of ? Some tell us so. But perhaps a 
few words about it may show it to be not so 
valueless as they suppose ; and may also show 
that it has not all the value that some others 
may have ascribed to it. For, perhaps the exag- 
geration of its worth is at the bottom of a good 



WHA T IS THEOL OGY? 1 7 1 

deal of its depreciation. Let us see just what it 
is, and so shall we see what it is worth. 

Theology is a science. What is a science ? 
It is the work of investigating the facts in the 
field under consideration, classifying them, and 
generalizing from them. It is the effort to ad- 
vance in the real knowledge of things, beyond 
what mere observation discerns. There are two 
kinds of sciences. The so-called exact ones deal 
with precise data and inexorable sequences, and 
lead, if properly pursued, to sure and necessary 
conclusions. But, as the word is generally used, 
it refers to another kind of work altogether, that 
of the inexact sciences. Their work is the in- 
vestigation and correlation of data that are not 
precise, like the axioms of mathematics, but only 
matters of observation, such as the rocks, the 
flowers, the animals, or the acts and experiences 
of men. Now, of course, no observation is com- 
plete or precise in any case, nor is any number of 
observations ever exhaustive. We do not know 
all about any one flower, and still less about all 
flowers. Consequently science must be always 
inexact when it is thus dealing with facts. 

Theology is a science of this sort, and just as 
truly a science as any other on the list. It is 
the study of the facts in the Christian field, with 
all the helps available. These are primarily, of 
course, the Apostolic and other sacred writings 
whence we chiefly get the data of our study. 
But this is not all. There are also the Apostolic 



172 WHAT IS THEOLOGY? 

traditions and institutions. Then there are the 
aids of spiritual insight, and of the experience of 
those who have lived in the light of the facts that 
are studied. And we also have philosophy in 
its many forms, history, and other sources still to 
which we may go. All these are the equipment 
for this labor to which God calls His people. 
But the labor has three aims. One is, to gain 
ever deeper apprehensions of the significance of 
the verities of the faith. What does it mean 
that God is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ? 
What does it mean that the First creates and 
cares for us, that the Second saves, and that the 
Third sanctifies ? What does the Forgiveness 
of Sins mean ? What does the promise of Resur- 
rection mean ? Such are a few out of countless 
questions that are raised by the Creed which the 
Church repeats in every service. Secondly, this 
science seeks to classify these facts, to show 
their relations to one another ; for any one truth 
must involve all other truths, and cast light upon 
them. Third, — and this is the practical object 
of the science, — it seeks to proclaim or apply 
these facts, the better to learn their value and 
their use. Geology or chemistry or anatomy are 
pursued, or should be, in order to use the results 
attained for the benefit of mankind and the glory 
of God. There is no justification of any study 
unless this is the object. And so Theology has, 
as its aim, not only the fuller possession of divine 
truth, but also greater efficiency in bringing that 
truth to bear udoii the hearts and lives of men. 



WHAT IS THEOLOGY? 1 73 

This statement assumes, of course, that we 
have such facts to work upon ; that the Creed of 
Christendom, regarding the person and work of 
Christ, is true. 

Our premises may be denied in different ways. 
There may be, in the first place, a flat repudiation 
of the reality of the Christian facts. This objec- 
tion is met by the evidences of Christianity. 
We have treated this, and have seen that these 
facts are involved in the reality of Jesus Christ ; 
for, if real, no one questions His veracity. We 
have also seen that His reality is, perhaps, the 
most undeniable event in human history ; not a 
matter of the remote past, but one in which we 
and the world are living and moving to-day ; a 
present, actual factor in our daily life, from the 
time we get up until we return to our bed, since 
all about us, and even within us, is what it is be- 
cause of Christ. We have seen that one might 
more easily doubt the actuality of any other fac- 
tor in current affairs than that of Him whose 
existence and agency all Christendom manifests, 
whose name is stamped on the brow of our civil- 
ization, as far as it is good or elevated. 

Again, the denial of our premises may be based 
upon the a priori objections of agnosticism, 
which says that God cannot communicate any 
truth to us, or that we could not apprehend it if 
the effort were made to give it. That is, this 
denial says in limine that, whatever may be the 
case with the verity of the events we believe in, 



174 WHAT IS THEOLOGY? 

there is in them no real knowledge of God, and 
therefore no real basis for a theological science. 
Such facts as we claim to have are either utterly 
imaginary, or else so affected by human limita- 
tions and preconceptions as to have no value to 
argue from. Even if there have been disclosures 
of the divine disposition and purposes, even if 
God has sent us communications through Christ, 
yet they are so modified in the process of their 
presentation, or so modified in their apprehension 
by us, that we know not what they are worth. 

Of course, if in Christianity " things are not 
what they seem," then our beliefs are false and 
there can be no Theology, any more than there 
can be a science of botany based upon obser- 
vation through discoloring or distorting lenses. 
But is this true ? To admit it means manifestly 
the surrender of all we rest upon. If what we 
call the love and the holiness and the mercy of 
God are not what those words convey to us, then 
it is difficult to see any value in them. They are 
counterfeits, and we have not what we want for 
our redemption and comfort, nor any actual 
knowledge of God at all. Then Christianity falls 
to pieces. Of course all faith must cease ; and 
at last all religion, even mere reverence, goes by 
the board, for we can hold no relations with an 
unknown object. But we are hardly prepared 
for this. It lands us where no one will go, in the 
position that we know really nothing about any- 
body or anything : for there is as much reason 



WHAT IS THEOLOGY? 1 75 

to be sure of the correctness of divine facts as 
of any other ; as much reason to believe that we 
can know God as that we can know a friend, for 
the one can reveal Himself to us if the other 
can. The facts about God are really more, and 
and not less, certain than those of other sorts ; 
at any rate they are so to some of us, whose cer- 
titude is found in inward, not in outward tests. 
For as we only know of any person what he 
manifests by his word or deed, so we believe 
that the self-revelation of God is the only one 
which is full, faultless, and free from all possibil- 
ity of error. The best of men and the fondest 
of friends may shrink from telling the secrets of 
his heart, may under strong temptation deceive ; 
but whatever comes from God must disclose Him 
exactly as He is. 

There is still a more conclusive argument than 
this. The whole matter of the trustworthiness 
of the facts regarding God that are included in 
the Creed of Christendom, turns upon the verac- 
ity of Jesus Christ. There are two things which 
He clearly said. One was that we can know 
God ; the other that He correctly revealed Him. 
His entire mission implied the possibility of our 
receiving divine disclosures : that is to say, He 
who is the highest authority among the sons of 
men on things spiritual and religious, affirmed 
the falseness of agnosticism. Carlyle, whom we 
quoted once before, said that "no man's opinion 
is worth anything when it conflicts with that of 



1/6 WHAT IS THEOLOGY? 

Jesus Christ." This is perfectly true. There- 
fore if any one tell us that revelation is not pos- 
sible, or that our reception of it is not possible, 
though he be some wise and learned son of cul- 
ture, we can simply reply that Jesus taught other- 
wise. After that, it makes little difference what 
any one else says. We need not trouble our- 
selves to resort to arguments for the knowability 
of eternal and absolute truth, though there are 
plenty of them, when that One who is wiser than 
any sage, profounder than any philosopher, de- 
clared it. To contradict Him in the realm of 
religious and metaphysical thought, is presump- 
tuous, and marks the folly of the man who does 
so. For, if not a Saviour, He is, at least, a wiser 
teacher than any one else who has undertaken 
to teach mankind. How much more is He, to 
those who regard Him as the Incarnate Word 
of God ! But He went beyond this. He said 
that what He disclosed of God was correct : not 
divine truth so affected by human conditions as 
to be untrustworthy. He said, "He that hath 
seen Me hath seen the Father;" " The words 
that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they 
are life ; " " No man cometh unto the Father 
but by Me ; " "I am the way, the truth, and the 
life ; " " He that is of the truth heareth my 
voice." These are only a few of many utter- 
ances that affirm or imply that the revelation 
that we have in Him is one of real, actual truths 
regarding the nature and the character of God, 



WHAT IS 7 NEOLOGY? \Jf 

that which is highest and most essential in God ; 
and that we, as made in His image, are capable 
of appreciating and receiving them. 

Agnosticism has done the good work of show- 
ing that we cannot, through philosophy and spec- 
ulation, reach a knowledge of the attributes and 
inner life of God, of His infinite qualities as the 
Self-existent One wherein He is unlike us. But 
it has not shown, and it is not within its power 
to show, that what He is, in His personal life 
and characteristics, cannot be known by faith in 
His Son. And these are the facts with which 
Theology deals. The verities of the Creed we 
hold and live by are verities regarding them. 
The rest is of little moment. The important 
thing is, that we have in Christ an actual disclos- 
ure of God as to His heart, His character, and 
His relations to His creatures. So Theology is 
a science of facts as certain, to those who be- 
lieve, as are the facts which are ascertained by 
the senses. It is real knowledge, not accommo- 
dated or conventional, or incomprehensible for- 
mulae of God and His ways. 

But it is not complete, we are told. What of 
that ? What knowledge is complete ? Who will 
claim that any fact in any science is fully known, 
either in itself or in its relations ? Who has an 
exhaustive acquaintance with a single insect or a 
single rock ? It may be that these facts of the 
Gospel are even less known than those of nature. 
Their very character may leave a larger fringe 



178 WHAT IS THEOLOGY? 

of mystery about them. This is not certain, 
since, in the fringe about the lowliest fact of na- 
ture, or the simplest one of experience, there is 
included all of God, if we may so speak; and 
when we pass into the higher spheres of inquiry 
and deal with life, we deal with a still larger ele- 
ment of the unknown. Biology brings us facts 
more remote from our grasp than chemistry. 
So, while it is true that it is difficult to determine 
the comparative degree of mystery in any case, 
yet we may say that, when we deal with the na- 
ture and acts of God, there are still more un- 
solved questions, there are still more reserved 
possibilities of disclosure. This may be a disad- 
vantage for Theology when contrasted with the 
sciences of the phenomena that the senses ap- 
prehend, and may cause us to feel a greater de- 
gree of possible error in our inductions. It 
should undoubtedly make us more cautious and 
less dogmatic in our inferences. 

But, on the other hand, there is an advantage 
peculiar to this science, which is the power to 
verify our processes, the possession of standards 
by which to detect errors. These are found in 
the person and teachings and spirit of Christ, as 
recorded in the New Testament. As all science 
consists in the combination of the data reasoned 
from with the process of reasoning, so, while our 
data may be more incomplete than those of other 
sciences, we yet possess what none of them have, 
and what their devotees would give anything to 



WHAT IS THEOLOGY? 1 79 

acquire, — a criterion by which we can tell what 
is inconsistent and inadmissible in our processes. 
The manifestation of God in Christ will, if borne 
in mind, save us from what may at any time hap- 
pen to the student of any other science — from 
falling into conclusions that are antagonistic to 
the very truth that is the subject of our study. 

That this has not always been remembered, is 
most evident. Forgetfulness of the principle, 
that anything affirmed of God must be in har- 
mony with the spirit and words of Jesus, has led 
to conclusions that are abhorrent. Logic has 
maintained them, and partisanship has accepted 
them, but they are nevertheless condemned by 
the norm which ought to be supreme to the 
Christian. As evident is the injury that this for- 
getfulness has produced. Believers have been 
perplexed ; the head and the heart have been 
placed in conflict. Many have turned away from 
all definite belief because, as it has been pre- 
sented too frequently, it seemed incompatible 
with the supremacy of conscience. Unbelievers 
have been given a plausible argument in the af- 
firmation that such conclusions are identical with 
Christian truth ; for, their overthrow being easy, 
Christianity goes with them. Many a man, un- 
able to discriminate between the faith and false 
inferences from it, has been alienated from the 
Gospel because of harsh and immoral doctrines 
that were alleged to be part of it. This could 
not have happened had the standard of Christian 



180 WHAT IS THEOLOGY? 

study been observed, that nothing can be true of 
God which does not harmonize with His mani- 
festation in Christ. It is in measure as this has 
been adhered to that progress has been made, 
and in that measure alone. 

Let it be so with us. Let us say nothing, be- 
lieve nothing, that Jesus would not have said, 
that is not in accord with His life and utterances. 
Let no authority nor any reasoning gain our sub- 
mission in such an issue. Let others see that 
we can make " the mind of Christ " supreme, 
and so shall we commend the Gospel to many a 
bewildered mind. Thus alone can the Church 
do this same thing. The world may not regard 
Christ as it should, but it has at any rate that 
idea of God which He has given to it ; and it 
justly says that such doctrines as a stern or an 
unmerciful or an unethical Theology would teach 
are ipso facto false, because dishonoring to Him 
who is above all things tender, just, and loving. 

Whitefield and Wesley were once arguing for 
and against the system called Calvinism, the for- 
mer being an unshrinking advocate of it. The 
latter pushed the former until he consistently ad- 
mitted that God acted only for His own glory, 
with no assignable reasons for His dealing dif- 
ferently with different men. Then Wesley ex- 
claimed : " Your God is my Devil." And he was 
right ; for that idea of God which some have 
taught, though few have held it in their hearts, 
is just what the ethical mind, the one taught of 



WHA T IS THEOLOG Y? 1 8 1 

Jesus, means by Satan, — a being who acts arbi- 
trarily, without reason and without love. 

So we come back to our definition of Theol- 
ogy, that it is the science of Christian facts, the 
process of their elucidation in accord with the 
spirit of Christ. 

Here we meet two classes of critics. On the 
one hand, there are those who tell us that the 
conclusions of Theology are of no real validity, 
and then, pointing to its conflicting utterances, 
say that this shows how all Christianity is guess- 
work after all : if there is all this uncertainty in 
one part of it, there is no certainty anywhere. 
But this is to say what would be ridiculed in 
other matters. There is just the same certainty, 
and there is just the same uncertainty, as in any 
other department of study. There is no cer- 
tainty in your science, whatever it be, we tell 
such a man, nothing settled and final. There is 
not a scientific proposition of any sort or kind of 
which that can be affirmed. A scientific state- 
ment means only that which is the best formula- 
tion of facts up to date. To-morrow may bring 
new facts which will demand a totally different 
formula, or it may bring new light on old ones 
which will revolutionize any generalization in ex- 
istence. Inductions are but working hypotheses. 
All that is fixed is the facts themselves, the flow- 
ers, the stones, the stars, the living creatures, 
the events, that are studied. They are certain, 
but nothing is certain in what the science may 



1 82 WHAT IS THEOLOGY? 

teach about their meaning and their relations. 
And so Theology has the same certainty in its 
facts and the same uncertainty in its inferences. 
There may be no more reason for accepting its 
results than those of any other science, but if no 
more, there is at least as much, for they are due 
to the working of the same human intelligence. 
But there is no more reason for rejecting its data 
because our reasonings are fallible, or because 
former positions are abandoned, than there was 
for denying that the planetary system was real 
when Copernicus overthrew the astronomy of pre- 
vious ages. It may be, and probably is, the fault 
of Christians that so many seem involved in this 
confusion of thought ; but at any rate many an 
opponent of our faith needs to learn to distin- 
guish between the sure and redeeming facts of 
the Church's Creed and the tentative or scien- 
tific efforts to explain them. We can live on, 
sustained, comforted, saved by the Gospel, apart 
from any theologizing ; just as well as the hungry 
man can find nourishment in food without any 
acquaintance with organic chemistry, or the pro- 
cesses of nutrition. 

But others will now retort, from a different 
quarter, no certainty in Theology ? Do you dare 
affirm this ? I dare affirm what your Church 
and my Church teaches. If anything is evident, 
it is that the Church does, as it must, indorse no 
Theology, commit itself to no scientific results, 
and therein it shows that it is Apostolic and 



WHA T IS THEOL OGV? 1 8 3 

Catholic. There are many systems or schools 
of Christian thought within the allowable limits 
of adherence to the Creed and Prayer Book. 
There are many theories of particular subjects, 
such as sacraments, ministry, atonement, escha- 
tology, and others more or less important, many 
theories even of the very organization of the 
Church. But the Church identifies itself with 
none, regards all as only approximate at the best, 
and authorizes no man to speak for it as to the 
final definition of anything. It is the same as in 
the State. This is committed to no theory or 
explanation of its organic facts, no science of 
government, no formula of social or political sci- 
ence. There are men, it is true, who say that 
their party is the only allowable one, and the 
authorized definer of constitutional data ; and so 
there are men who say that their ism or their 
theological affirmations are the voice of the 
Church, their doxy is orthodoxy. But as the 
State, so the Church frowns or smiles on such 
people according to their importance, and goes 
on, with no syllable of sanction for their claim, 
keeping itself clear of responsibility for the stam- 
mering and transient utterances of presumptu- 
ous men. 

It leaves all that to sects. The idea of a sect, 
as has been stated elsewhere, is, that it is com- 
mitted to some form of Christian thought, or to 
the especial emphasis of some particular Chris- 
tian verity. There may have been some good 



1 84 WHAT IS THEOLOGY? 

resulting from such bodies, especially when they 
think it their duty to testify to forgotten or ob- 
scured truths. But the Church idea is to allow 
no form of thought to be made binding upon its 
members. It says that they all are but scientific 
efforts to arrive at truth, and therefore not final 
attainments. It does this for two reasons. One 
is that, ever mindful of the limitations of human 
capacity in any sphere of study, it is especially 
so as to this study of the divine verities of its 
Creed, and consequently insists that no formula, 
no generalization, is ultimate, or ever can be, on 
the lips of creatures speaking of their Creator. 
That is, the Church allows no autocracy of logic 
in theology. Perhaps the greatest evil in the 
history of Christendom has been the claim to 
argue to irreversible conclusions with binding 
effect. For instance, because God's sovereignty 
is a truth, therefore immoral doctrines of predes- 
tination and thinly disguised fatalism are made 
matters of faith ; because baptism is of divine 
appointment, therefore there is no salvation with- 
out it ; because Christ died for our sins, accord- 
ing to the Scriptures, therefore it was to ap- 
pease a wrathful God. Such are specimens of 
the use of that little word ergo, which has led to 
intolerable tenets and to cruel persecutions and 
unchristian schisms. But this is all due to for- 
getting that, as in any other science that deals 
with facts, logic is of imperfect obligation or 
value ; since, the data being but imperfectly 



WHAT IS THEOLOGY? 1 85 

known as far as we have them, and only partial 
also, we cannot reach certain conclusions. We 
can never draw perfect conclusions from imper- 
fect premises ; yet such are all our premises 
when we deal with divine things, even more than 
in the realm of nature. Before we can draw a 
binding inference from the verities of our faith, 
we must have a certainty that we comprehend 
the latter in all their relations, which the Church 
never presumes to affirm. 

Sometimes this claim to pursue inferences un- 
erringly assumes grotesque forms in serious 
men's utterances. Not only in works of system- 
atic theology, as they are called, but in single 
statements, we meet with an assumption of ac- 
quaintance with deep things that is appalling. 
Perhaps the climax was reached by an eminent 
New England divine who said that, with his sys- 
tem of doctrine, he could answer every question 
that could be asked. Compared with this, the 
assumptions of the Pope of Rome are modest and 
moderate. 

The other reason why the Church holds no at- 
tainments in theology to be final is that which 
Christ has given, both directly and through the 
teaching of His Apostles. He said that the 
Holy Spirit would lead the Church into all the 
truth ; that there was to be a growth in the 
knowledge of its Lord and Saviour in the entire 
body, as really as in the individual ; and He 
never said that this leading should at any time 



1 86 WHAT IS THEOLOGY? 

reach its completeness and there stop. The 
Romanist and the sectarian have alike a belief 
that, at some date, that guidance ceased upon 
this or that line because a goal was reached, and 
so they think that the formula then obtained 
may and must be accepted as a final crystalliza- 
tion of a truth. But the Church that is Apos- 
tolic, and, thank God ! our own, believes that this 
leading is to go on and on, with ever deepening 
vistas into " the mystery of godliness," ever 
greater gains in purity of apprehension, ever 
larger perceptions of the fullness and richness 
of its every divine fact, whether dogma or sac- 
rament or ordinance or promise. This must be 
so in the nature of the case. 

But we need definite doctrine. This is the 
cry of many unable to understand the position of 
the Catholic Church, or to appreciate "the lib- 
erty wherewith Christ has made us free." It 
has always been the wish of unthinking men. 
The simple fact is, that in their sense they can- 
not get it, and our spiritual mother declines to 
give it. She will leave room in her fold for those 
who are to come after, and whom, with maturer 
thought, the definite doctrines of to-day would 
not satisfy about such things as God's sover- 
eignty, or man's ability, or the theory of atone- 
ment by Christ, or the working of the Holy 
Ghost. He is hardly kind who would so tie her 
up that his descendants will have to feed on his 
limited conceptions, or tune their voices to his 



WHAT IS THEOLOGY? 1 87 

shibboleths, however sweet to his own ear they 
may be. And if he want this definite teaching, 
which will he take ? Will he take that of the 
Eastern Church, or of the Western ? Will he 
take that of Italy or of England ? Will he take 
that of Aquinas or of Scotus ? Will he take that 
of Hooker, or of Cosin ? Will he choose to- 
day that of a Pusey or of a Maurice ? A recent 
dignitary, referring to two eminent divines, said 
that he daily prayed that he "might live like 
a Taylor and die like a Bull." This apparently 
grotesque desire meant that all schools may 
teach us something, each so-called definite doc- 
trine that some one has been satisfied with may 
help some of us somewhere. But let no one 
dare to. say that conclusions which he has 
reached are definitive, in the sense of being bind- 
ing upon other disciples of Christ, when they 
utter their belief in Him in their creed. The 
Church says to us, " Definite teaching is found 
in these facts upon which Christianity stands. 
Rest upon them, live by them, preach them. 
Beyond them, you have liberty to think and ad- 
vise and suggest, and to express your convic- 
tions. But I decline to warrant your committing 
me, the Church that embraces all kinds of minds 
and must have room for all the ages, to any of 
your theological conclusions as final. Faultless 
conceptions of Christ and His work you cannot 
have and never will have. For, to finite crea- 
tures, there will ever remain an inexplorable re- 



1 88 WHAT IS THEOLOGY? 

gion on the other side of every fact, and all your 
imagined definiteness is, at the best, but the im- 
perfect result of scientific effort. I have enough 
to answer for without being accountable for, and 
making my message identical with, the conclu- 
sions of any man or any set of men at any time." 
That is, the Church repudiates the idea of in- 
fallibility. There is a frequent confusion of 
thought about this term. Infallibility, as Rome 
claims it, and as it really means, is inerrancy or 
perfectness in doctrinal definition. Rome as- 
serts this, and so in principle does every body of 
men that commits itself to any theological sys- 
tem or theory of the Gospel ; for, if honest, it 
must believe itself right and others wrong in 
what it stands for. The strength of this posi- 
tion is the unwillingness or the incapacity of 
many to discriminate between facts and our con- 
ception of their relations ; and to see that, while 
we can be sure of the former, we cannot in any 
way be sure of the correctness of the latter. 
Yet this is the attraction of Rome to many, that 
to those who regard true Christianity, not as a 
life of trust, but as assent to a set of accurately 
stated dogmatic propositions, that system says, 
" Come unto me and I will give you rest," rest 
from controversy over matters of belief. Rome 
alone makes openly such an absurd and vain pre- 
tension, yet every sect makes it by implication. 
But for those who see that the peace of the 
Christian is not the rest of final settlement of 



WHAT IS THEOLOGY? 1 89 

all deep questions, but confidence in Gospel 
facts, this invitation has no relevancy. It is seen 
to be an offer of what is not at all essential to 
peace of mind, and of what is only given in coun- 
terfeit, never in reality. For infallibility is a 
dream never to be realized, a hallucination if be- 
lieved in. It is impossible to the Christian who 
believes in the leading of the Spirit as a contin- 
uous thing. All history contradicts it, in the 
cases where it has been claimed. Roman so- 
called infallible utterances have been changed 
and corrected ; and sects that began to be be- 
cause of some tenet of which their founders 
were so sure that they left the Church, perhaps 
at cost of heroic sacrifices, to witness to it, have 
come to give up their very raison d'etre by ad- 
mitting that those founders were, after all, mis- 
taken. That the Church will not actually fall 
away from its message or die out, we must be- 
lieve, since Christ has promised this ; but that it 
can or ever will infallibly utter the fullness of 
any part of that message, there is no reason to 
expect, no reason to desire. 

And now we see the value of the theological 
work of the past, and of the vast literature which 
it has given us, and which records the progress 
of Christians in apprehending the Gospel upon 
which they lean, the Christ in whom they trust. 
The progress has not been so slow, nor the re- 
sults so small, as some perhaps imagine. The 
element of mystery in this science is somewhat 



190 WHAT IS THEOLOGY? 

larger than in some others ; and so we should 
expect that, apart from the influence of feeling 
and prejudice, which are naturally more involved, 
it should advance towards its goal more slowly 
than they. The inorganic sciences have ad- 
vanced with very halting steps, and the organic 
ones even more slowly ; and their schools of 
thought are so various and opposed as seriously 
to confuse us, who do not understand their re- 
condite discussions much better than they seem 
to understand our own. But there has been that 
progress in theology which we should expect 
from the efforts of human intelligence, and the 
guidance of the Spirit of God. Clearer views of 
the divine truth have been gained, and the limits 
of our capacity more clearly perceived. There 
has been advance in seeing what may be said, 
and what may not, about the Father, the Son, 
and the Holy Ghost, and their respective oper- 
ations. Those parts of Christendom that have 
been capable and alive have made advance in 
proportion to their conditions ; an advance felt 
in the life and thought of their people, shown in 
the utterances of the clergy, lending color to lit- 
erature and assistance to conduct. Especially 
marked has this advance been in the century 
now drawing to its close, perhaps more than in 
any of its predecessors, except the fourth. The 
various ancillary sciences, with whose aid alone 
this one can make progress, have been devel- 
oped to a marvelous degree. First comes the 



WHA T IS THEOLOG V? 1 9 1 

interpretation of the Bible, for which we have 
unprecedented assistance in improved critical 
apparatus, and in our wider acquaintance with 
every branch of knowledge that bears upon the 
elucidation of the sacred pages. Then there is 
the advance made in historical study, in psychol- 
ogy with its light on spiritual facts, even in phys- 
ics which discloses so much as to God's methods 
in creation and preservation. These are all, 
with many others, achievements of this century, 
and contribute what our fathers longed for, — in- 
dispensable assistance to the queen of all sci- 
ences ; that which she awaits, and which they 
can give. The consequence is, that they who are 
willing to seek it will find an advance of which 
others little know, and which is often denied by 
some who are called learned in theology, and 
who would have been so a century ago, but whose 
position is as representative of this noble science 
to-day as would be that of a contemporary of a 
Hutton in geology, or of a Kepler in astronomy, 
or of a Galvani in physics. Our very children 
now learn, as commonplaces, what our grand- 
fathers died without seeing, and reject as abhor- 
rent what the latter fed upon as precious. We 
now wonder at what the best and wisest saw no 
difficulty in holding ; and, in our devotions and 
conduct, we are guided by w r hat they may only 
have dreamed of as unpractical vagaries. Prob- 
lems in thought and action, in the world of sub- 
stance and of phenomena, in Church and State, 



I92 WHAT IS THEOLOGY? 

in polity and dogma, once perplexing, are now 
easily solved by the progress made in theology. 
Many of the implications and the bearings of the 
Gospel of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amplified 
in the facts of the Apostolic message, are ap- 
prehended now as, a hundred years ago, there 
seemed little hope that they ever could be. 

That is, this vast literature, which is so often 
regarded as of little value, has the same value 
as that of other sciences. True, there is many 
a musty tome that records forgotten teachings, 
and many a volume now unopened that contains 
the results of years of labor. Yet, after all, those 
books tell the progress in steps of earnest 
thought, the contribution of each worker to the 
cause, the special path pursued by each school of 
toilers, the best thought of each time up to the 
point attained in our own day. There is much 
that has been left behind forever ; yet there is 
much that can never be outgrown, much that is 
too profound or too holy for us to say that it has 
nothing for us. The fathers in this science, like 
the fathers in others, — the Galileos, the Buffons, 
the Newtons, the Lamarcks, - — may have said 
many things that are antiquated, but they had a 
grasp upon principles and a vision of vistas that 
are rarely possessed now. And so we are all 
richer for this theological labor, and this lore of 
other days. All share in its results. They are in 
the air. Churchman and Sectarian, High and Low 
and Broad Schools of thought, men that know 



WHAT IS THEOLOGY? 1 93 

nothing about the matter as well as those who 
know, — all are enlightened and better for this 
progress in theological study. This growth in 
the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ brings blessing to all, though they never 
read its volumes, just as all are partakers of the 
benefits of many another line of human inquiry, 
who are unacquainted with its steps, know noth- 
ing of its struggles, have no honor for its heroes. 

But we must not overrate these results of the- 
ology, great as they are. We must remember 
how much more is undisclosed, how many more 
questions are unanswered still. Upward progress 
renders the horizon ever larger, and shows us, 
not less but more of the wide, wide world of na- 
ture. It is so with the wider world of truth and 
things divine. Each new elevation we attain, as 
we seek to scale the height of any of these lofty 
verities of the faith, which, like majestic peaks, 
soar upwards towards the heavens and are bathed 
in sunlight, not only shows us, as any one who 
tries it knows, new views of the truth possessed, 
but also new demands for effort, new distances 
to traverse ere the top be reached, — that sum- 
mit which never shall be gained, since to all eter- 
nity we shall be approaching, without attaining, 
that full understanding which only God has of 
what He has told us in His Son. For that sum- 
mit is at His throne. 

So theology is only a science, but a very holy 
and a very precious one, and one to which the 



194 WHAT IS THEOLOGY? 

Church and the world, and each one of us, owe 
more than is often realized, because of what, 
under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it has 
drawn from the Gospel of the Son of God. 

Each one ought to some extent to make him- 
self familiar with it. The laity are not required 
to be theologians in this Church, and it is a 
blessed thing that only the simple Apostles' 
Creed is asked from their lips in baptism. That 
reproach often made against our laity, that they 
know so little of doctrine, is not so much to their 
discredit as some think. We are very glad that 
they are not, and are not expected to be, com- 
mitted to any transient shibboleth or dominant 
idea, nor to define " the plan of salvation," as it 
is called, in all details, upon the basis of some 
assumption to which all the rest must conform, 
and by which every nook and corner of truth is 
thought to be illumined. Yet it is true that the 
laity can and should make themselves better ac- 
quainted with theological progress than they gen- 
erally do. If the matter is put in a novel it is 
read, and a great deal of theology, often correct, 
yet more generally extremely crude and incorrect, 
is absorbed because sugar-coated with fiction. 
But there are plenty of volumes which are within 
reac'h of those who are not experts, which will 
help them, teach them correctly, enrich their reli- 
gious thinking, and show them a wealth of acqui- 
sition and a reach of discovery which they would 
deeply enjoy. 



WHAT IS THEOLOGY? 1 95 

For, with all that may be said as to differences 
of opinion, and all that may be charged as to the 
defect of fallibility, yet, when we consider that 
the loftier the field of study, the greater is the 
element of mystery ; the higher the phenomena, 
the greater the liability of investigators to reach 
varying conclusions, — we can affirm that, in this 
age of the sciences, none has made more advance 
than this sovereign of them all. As the bright- 
est lives of history are found in the calendar of 
the Church's saints, so the loftiest intellects are 
found in the list of its students, and the richest 
contributions to the world's light come from 
their consecrated inquiry. And to-day, little as 
some appear to be aware of it, the keenest inves- 
tigators, and the profoundest seers into myste- 
rious things, are found among those who are la- 
boring in that science which has as its aim the 
making known of "the unsearchable riches of 
Christ." 



LECTURE VII. 

THE BIBLE. 

" They received the word with all readiness of mind, and 
searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so." — 
Acts xvii. ii. 

What is the Bible, and what is its place in 
Christianity ? Some may wonder why this in- 
quiry was not considered first, and before the 
other questions, but, as has been partly seen, and 
will be yet more fully seen, the answer to it de- 
pends upon those that have preceded it. It is in 
accordance with our conceptions regarding them 
that our view of the Sacred Volume will be 
formed. 

By the first question, What is the Bible ? is not 
meant merely what it is as to its contents. It is 
a volume consisting of writings by men taught of 
Christ, or by their disciples, and embracing biog- 
raphies of Him, a history of the foundation of 
the Church, some general letters and some other 
letters to individuals and local churches, and a 
book of predictions as to the future of Christendom 
and the world. There is also added to that collec- 
tion the sacred writings of Israel, which received 
the indorsement of the Lord and His Apostles as 



THE BIBLE 1 97 

fit to be included in a book for the Church's use. 
Concerning the history of the formation of this 
volume it is not necessary to speak ; nor are we 
called upon to go into discussions which, how- 
ever pressing and important, yet do not involve 
what we are now to notice, and do not affect 
what this lecture will endeavor to set forth. 

The question, What is the Bible ? means, What 
estimate are we to make of it ? where are we to 
place it among the books of the world ? what 
deference are we to give it ? We shall be guided 
in our reply by considering certain features that 
stand out as we look at it. 

At the outset, we notice its unity. In reality 
it is a library, a collection of writings made dur- 
ing an interval of nearly fifteen hundred years 
by about seventy authors in different lands, and 
who, in many cases, never saw one another. 
Further, these men never knew that their writ- 
ings were to be collected in a volume. Yet 
really it is one book. Although so diverse in 
origin, it is so much a unit that many readers do 
not seem to know it is not the work of one man ; 
and most readers peruse it without thinking of 
its varied authorship, if aware of it. For all dif- 
ferences are lost in the sense of the prevailing 
unity that is felt as one reads it. It is a unit in 
its theme : the redemption of man, and prepara- 
tion for that result. It is a unit in its temper 
and tone : a holy book. It is a unit in its teach- 
ing : it does not contradict itself. It is a unit in 



198 THE BIBLE. 

its progress : does not speak a different utter- 
ance as years go by, nor revert to stages that had 
been passed. 

Now, this unity of so many writings by so 
many men, during so many years, would seem to 
indicate a superintending mind. When we see a 
number of blocks of stone, upon being brought 
together, combine into a symmetrical edifice, we 
conclude as evident that some one directed their 
preparation who had the structure in view. So 
this harmonious book, resulting from the combi- 
nation of so many factors, indicates the superin- 
tendence of an intelligence that guided all the 
work towards that intended goal. This can have 
been no human mind. A superintendence over 
so wide a field can only mean the Providence of 
God. Thus has the fact that the labors of so 
many men result in a handbook for God's people, 
which is so consistent, symmetrical, and adapted 
to the end for which the ages since have used it, 
always indicated to reasonable men the presence 
of a divine element in its canon, made them feel 
that the collection has been more than the re- 
sult of merely human selection and preservation. 
Define it as you please, there is nowhere else 
any greater instance of the working of Provi- 
dence than in the history of the Bible. 

But this is not all. There are some other facts 
that must be taken into the account, in forming 
an estimate of this strange book, bearing upon 
other questions than its origin as a collection. 



THE BIBLE. 1 99 

Consider its exhaustlessness. No other book 
has been so much studied. The treatises and 
commentaries devoted to it exceed enumeration. 
Biblical literature is equal in quantity to that of 
any other department, perhaps greater than any. 
That study has been varied. It has been devo- 
tional, to stimulate piety ; practical, to guide con- 
duct ; and doctrinal, to develop theology. It has 
been prosecuted by all kinds of minds, — by the 
most acute as well as by the most commonplace. 
Men in the front rank of intellectual power have 
gone to it for ages, as to a mine for explora- 
tion ; preachers, as to a spring for themes and 
thoughts ; poets, as to a garden for flowers of 
imagery and illustration. Yet it has not been 
exhausted, and shows no sign of exhaustion. It 
is studied to-day as much as ever, more critically 
than ever before, yet it yields as much as ever 
that is fresh and precious. Instead of having 
been outgrown by human progress, on the con- 
trary all that progress only ministers to its study. 
Other books are one by one laid away upon the 
shelf, superseded in the flight of time, however 
valuable they may once have been ; but this one 
lives on in perennial value. It sees ambitious 
literature pass into forgetfulness.. just as the 
Church sees empires rise and pass away that had 
threatened its supremacy. 

Again, consider the effects of this volume on 
life and conduct, — a subject needing the history 
of Christendom and the history of civilization to 



200 THE BIBLE. 

cover its ground. Its perusal has been the cause 
of revolutions in countless characters ; its distri- 
bution, the source of the strength of the strong- 
est nations ; its reopening, the awakening of peo- 
ples from the sleep of ages. This can be said 
of no other volume. In counting up the factors 
that have contributed to make the world what it 
is to-day, in enumerating the forces potent for 
good in this land, the powers that have shaped 
our lives, our homes, our surroundings, this is 
one of the few controlling elements, and the only 
book that is to be included in such a list. 

Consider its effects upon literature. This is 
especially noticeable in our own, while it is also 
great in that of other lands and tongues. One 
can hardly open a page of prose or poetry, of fic- 
tion, of history, or of philosophy, without finding 
what would not have been there had there been 
no Bible. This is true of writings by men who 
do not esteem it as we do. It is so ingrained 
in our thought that it is a question whether it 
would be possible to write a volume on any sub- 
ject that should owe nothing to the Scriptures. 
It would, at any rate, be extremely dull or im- 
poverished in style. Skeptics and infidels do not 
seem able to escape incurring indebtedness to it. 
They have to use its metaphors, refer to its con- 
tents, recognize its prestige. Its version is the 
English classic, and occupies a place in our liter- 
ature that no other book occupies in any other 
language. But, apart from this matter of style, 



THE BIBLE. 201 

take out of the pages of Shakespeare, or Tenny- 
son, or Browning, or out of Gibbon or Macaulay, 
yes, out of those of an unbeliever like Shelley, 
or a creature of self-indulgence like Byron, all 
that they owe to the Bible, and the result would 
be pages white with hiatuses, and as void of se- 
quence as of illustration. And as to Milton, 
what would be left of him ? Yes, take him who 
stands at the head of human literature, the peer- 
less Dante, and see there how even the supreme 
poet, because the loftiest prophet, was what he 
was, wrote what he wrote, because of the influ- 
ence of this wonderful book. 

Consider its superiority in dignity to other 
books. They all seem commonplace and earthly 
in comparison. They may be more exciting, 
more interesting even, yet no one would say 
they are so lofty. They may be beyond our imi- 
tation, yet not inconceivably so. That is, we 
can imagine men able to write the Ethics of 
Aristotle or a play of Shakespeare, without ab- 
surdity, but no sensible man will claim that he, 
or any one else, could ever write the Book of 
Isaiah, or the Epistle to the Romans. It is not 
what we expect of any genius or any learning. 
We regard it as no reproach to compare any 
other work with it unfavorably, since it is known 
to be, of course, inimitable. 

Notice its superiority to its own contempo- 
rary literature. We have plenty of writings of 
the days of the New Testament, and are finding 



202 THE BIBLE. 

more and more belonging to the period covered 
by the Old. Yet none of them approach the 
Sacred Scriptures. The Greek and Latin clas- 
sics, with all their wealth, have nothing to lay 
hold of the heart as do these books by lowly 
Jews ; and as to the others, compared with the 
Old Testament, all ancient volumes of India or 
Chaldea are "flat, stale, and unprofitable." As 
Max Miiller said, when criticised for publishing 
versions of the Sacred Books of the East, Chris- 
tians should court the comparison, for it shows 
how inferior these are to the Sacred Books of 
Israel. 

But it is chiefly with regard to the moral and 
religious element that these books show their su- 
periority to old literature. This is the supreme 
test of a book, that which must fix its rank, the 
measure of the value of any volume. And here 
the Bible shows an unapproachable elevation. 
Now these writers, though living in different 
epochs and in varied lands, were yet always sur- 
rounded by crude and low ideas of God. Their 
contemporaries are full of statements and ideas 
that we spurn, and of ethics that are intolerable ; 
they have no reproof for hideous vices, and teach 
unworthy views of life. But out of such times 
and such surroundings this Bible emerges clear 
as the sunlight, pure as the snow. This is es- 
pecially marked where it treats the same themes 
as other writings. Take, for instance, the story 
of creation and of the early days of the world. 



THE BIBLE. 203 

On Chaldean monuments and tablets that story- 
is all found, but there it is mixed with polythe- 
ism and puerilities and worthless rubbish. Here, 
however, as in all the rest of its pages, the stand- 
ard of the Bible can endure the tests of our 
mental and moral progress. Its ethics conform 
to the taste of these latest times, for it is read 
as helpful unto true godliness by the holiest in 
their holiest hours, in this evening of the nine- 
teenth century. 

For consider, lastly, how it has been loved. 
To say that it has been supremely treasured, and 
copies of it valued as relics ; that it has been the 
only volume prized by the sick and the suffer- 
ing, the only one cherished in the most sacred 
moments of life, — is all too trite to dwell upon. 
The earnest opponents of the faith have done 
their best to shake its hold upon human affec- 
tion, have used many a plausible argument, many 
a keen weapon, but they have not succeeded. 
Never were so many Bibles sold as to-day, never 
so many distributed. If we were to poll the list 
of the holy and intelligent people of any commu- 
nity, who doubts that this would be found to be, 
of all the volumes in the world, the most valued ? 
Other books are read with intense interest, but 
we cannot say that men love them. Others may 
be regarded by some as more important, yet 
none has such a hold upon the hearts of those we 
most revere. There is no other book for which 
men will die, without which life would be so 



204 THE BIBLE. 

dark ; none else that could not be replaced if 
the world's libraries were burned by some new 
Omar. 

Now, how are we to account for a volume not 
only so strange a unit, but so exhaustless to 
study, so wide in its influence, so superior to 
others, and so beloved ? This question cannot 
be put aside. This book is unique. There is no 
other that can be put on the same shelf. Great 
and vast as is the literature of this world, the 
books of the Bible form a class separate from it 
all, because superior in value to mankind. There 
must be some adequate explanation of such a 
fact. What is it ? 

The only reasonable one is that which has 
ever been given by the best thought of the most 
advanced lands, and by the Church, which repre- 
sents the efflorescence of human opinion, — is 
that God gave it to the world. It is manifestly 
His book ; as clearly His bestowal as creation or 
redemption are His work. It cannot be man's 
gift, for it is beyond his capacity, because it does 
for God's people what only God can do, — brings 
a message that bears the divine stamp, shows the 
divine mind. But this is not only true regard- 
ing its compilation, of which we have spoken ; it 
is true of its contents and matter, so exhaustless 
and so exalted. That is, a divine element in the 
component parts can alone account for these pe- 
culiarities that have been noticed ; and that ele- 
ment is Inspiration. 



THE BIBLE. 205 

At once this word awakens opposition, and 
perhaps ridicule. Many say that it is only an 
antiquated notion of credulous folk. But it is 
pretty safe to say, as observation shows, that 
they who speak thus either do not know what 
inspiration means, or else are not sufficiently 
familiar with the Book to pass any opinion upon 
its peculiarities. 

By " inspiration " we mean that influence of the 
Spirit of God which gives discernment in spir- 
itual things, whether moral or religious. Surely 
this is the mark of the Bible, for this has made 
it precious. Its value has not lain in its historic 
lore, nor in its poetic beauty, nor in its literary 
isolation ; but in the light that comes from it for 
the dark hours of life, the deep hours of thought, 
and the soaring hours of holy meditation. It is 
"The Book," — which is its name translated into 
English, — just because it is alone authoritative 
on supreme things. It is solitary as the volume 
of religious and ethical teaching. But whence can 
such illumination come, if not from the " Father 
of lights " ? Some would tell us that its inspira- 
tion is the same as that of poets and painters, 
who have been given that attribute in common 
parlance ; that its superiority is the result of 
genius. But there is no evidence that these 
writers were all geniuses, or that any were such 
extraordinary men as to be capable in themselves 
of giving such light to the world. Moreover, 
this afflatus is not that which results in aesthetic 



206 THE BIBLE. 

or in imaginative excellence ; it is of a kind that 
genius does not possess ; it is a spiritual inspi- 
ration. The Bible speaks to men of loftier 
things than art. Its power, its excellence, per- 
tain to a different sphere. It speaks to the 
heart, of God and holiness, of right and truth, of 
eternity and of the way to gain it. Men prize it 
beyond all other books because in it they hear, as 
in no others, the voice of God, — find in it what 
they seek from Him, and what can only come 
from Him. But, some will retort, Wherein then 
is this different from the inspiration of saintly 
preachers, or of such books as the Pilgrim's 
Progress, or the Imitation of Christ ? They are 
indeed akin, we admit, for they all show the 
divine afflatus. But the difference is, that the 
latter owe to the Bible all the value they possess, 
gain thence their inspiration. It stands to them 
as the spring to the water, as the original to the 
copy, at the best. Other men might write, like 
an a Kempis or a Bunyan, by drawing upon the 
same source, but not like a John. We quote the 
pages of the latter as finally authoritative, as 
well as supremely precious. But no one would 
probably so quote the former, which at once 
shows that in their cases inspiration means a 
different thing in kind as well as degree. 

So we see that there are three possible views 
of this marvelous volume. One is, that it is 
only human, the pious work of gifted men. We 
reply to this that, if it could account for the ele- 



THE BIBLE. 20*J 

vation of the Bible, it could not explain its unity ; 
and as to its elevation, if one see no more than 
human illumination, no more than what is feas- 
ible to men, by comparison with what men have 
otherwise done, if one see not that the Bible 
occupies a solitary position over against the 
other books in the world, — it is a matter of judg- 
ment, about which, like one of taste, we cannot 
argue. It is like saying that one sees no more 
than humanity in Christ, or human wisdom in 
history ; things which cannot be demonstrated, 
any more than one can demonstrate the excel- 
lence of a picture, or the beauty of a flower. 
Such a man lacks the development of his reli- 
gious perceptions, and that is all we can say. As 
was remarked, this denial of any divine element 
is usually due to a misapprehension of what it 
means, — a reaction from the exaggerated state- 
ment of it, to which we now turn. 

The usual position regarding the Bible, the 
principal error to be met, has been the other 
extreme, or holding its inspiration to such a de- 
gree that the human element has been entirely 
denied. The chief danger to its real value has 
been making it only a divine dictation, where the 
penmen had no part beyond the writing of the 
words. This is the same heresy as Docetism 
regarding Christ, for it is affirming that the hu- 
manity in the written word is only a semblance. 
It shows, in the one case as in the other, how 
intensely patent the divinity is when it has been 
so difficult to keep its affirmation within bounds. 



208 THE BIBLE. 

But this theory is as much contradicted by 
facts in Inspiration as in Incarnation. The hu- 
man element in the Scriptures is as real as that 
in the life of Jesus ; and it is as absurd to 
thought, and as dangerous to religion, to deny it 
in one case as in the other. It is seen every- 
where, — in the differences between the writers 
and between their productions ; in the expres- 
sions that mark the working of real minds, the 
actual thinking of living men. It may seem su- 
perfluous to speak of a matter so obvious, yet 
every day we see that it is necessary. This ex- 
treme position has alienated, and is alienating, 
many from the Bible itself, who think that to 
accept this book requires the acceptance of so 
indefensible a view of it. Yet even this error 
has a singular strength for men. Many lives and 
careers, saturated with the idea, have had a mar- 
velous force because of it. This is seen in the 
case of General Gordon, whose letters show what 
a mighty power it was in his heroic life. How 
true that inspiration must be which, in an inde- 
fensible form, yet makes men as holy and fearless 
as he ! How shallow they must be who deny it ! 

A sensible and a sound view of all the facts; 
then, leads us to see in this book both a human 
and a divine element ; therefore our effort must 
be to seek some formula of their relation. It is 
easy here, as elsewhere, to solve the problem by 
eliminating either factor, but a wise man would 
rather leave it unsolved than gain such an un- 



THE BIBLE, 209 

candid solution ; and unsolved it must ever re- 
main, just as the problem of the union of the 
human and divine in history or in life, or in the 
person of the Redeemer. 

And herein is this Church of ours found to be 
wise. It has never given any definition of In- 
spiration, allows no one to commit it to any. In 
the Prayer Book and Ordination Services, as in 
the Articles, the Sacred Volume is said to be a 
standard, an ultimate rule of faith and practice ; 
which is giving to it an authority that cannot be 
given to human utterances. But the word " in- 
spiration " is not mentioned; the whole subject 
as to how the Volume has come to possess such 
an authority is studiously avoided. God is said 
to speak in it, but it is not said how that is true. 
The Church is too prudent to use any term or 
state any theory which is sure to be outgrown, 
and to be forever insufficient. When one can 
tell me how the divine and human were related 
in Christ ; how God sanctifies a mind ; how God 
guides the lives of men ; yes, how God sustains 
the world : — when he tells me the formula of 
any connection between God and the creature, I 
will tell him the formula of an inspiration that is 
just as patent as these other facts. 

This much, however, we must abide by : the 
inspiration was of the men, not of the books. 
What we see is, not the light from the pages, but 
that from the writers who wrote them. They 
were illumined in such measure as each needed 



i 



210 THE BIBLE. 

for his task, whether to avoid saying the unfit, or 
to say that which was needed. Call it the inspi- 
ration of a people or of a Church, which is behind 
the books, yet it is the same thing. If it be the 
result of the inspiration of Israel, or of the Chris- 
tian brotherhood, yet that inspiration culminated, 
as nowhere else, in these writers of the Bible. 

Again, this was real inspiration, not physical 
compulsion or dictation. It was the free and 
real work of thinking men, but of men whose 
minds had an illumination we do not find in oth- 
ers, a gift so to perceive spiritual things as to 
render them our guides and authorities. It is 
that which no education, no talents can confer, 
which makes us ready to learn of them what we 
cannot learn of. others, willing to sit at their 
feet when we would be taught of God. It is 
that which makes men who will call no man mas- 
ter, their disciples. 

Such, then, being the Bible, a divinely given 
and divinely inspired Volume, what is its place in 
Christendom, its relation to the Church ? This 
is a very different question from the one just 
considered. The statement of its divine charac- 
ter does not settle its use. It is also a very im- 
portant question ; for some answers to it have 
been the source of much error and confusion, 
and, as we shall see, have led to complications 
that rendered difficult the vindication of essential 
Christianity. It has been touched upon before 
this, and the correct reply indicated. But let us 



THE BIBLE. 2 I I 

now address ourselves to it directly, that the issue 
may be clear. We do not refer to the devotional 
use of the Scriptures. About this there is no 
dispute, as to its being a means of grace, a help 
in the spiritual life. It is rather their use in 
matters of belief and practice that we would con- 
sider, about which there is great dispute, and a 
common view of which is, as we shall see, en- 
tirely wrong and utterly impracticable. 

The position that is true and consistent with 
the idea of Christianity may be shown by an ex- 
perience which set it forth in a way that was 
new and effective. 

It was once my lot to be storm-stayed for a 
week in Syracuse, waiting for the turbulent 
Mediterranean to calm itself sufficiently for us to 
pass to Tunis. There was plenty to occupy us 
during the day in such a place, where we could 
visit the deep quarries in which seven thousand 
Athenian captives were starved to death, as re- 
lated by Thucydides ; the fountain of Cyane, 
where Orpheus found entrance to the lower 
world in search of Proserpine; the beautiful blue 
Anapo, fringed with nodding papyrus ; and other 
places interesting to the classical student. 

But the evenings offered no such diversions, 
and so my companion and I passed them at the 
cafe or club, where the officers of the garrison, 
the professors in the university, and whatever 
there was of aristocracy in that dead city, were 
wont to gather, and where we met that courtesy 



212 THE BIBLE. 

in which Italians excel. On the second evening, 
while we were enjoying the bright scene and 
watching the games and conversations in pro- 
gress, a gentleman approached to invite us to 
join one of the circles, supposing us to be Eng- 
lish tourists. Upon learning that we were 
Americans, he became interested, for he had 
never before met those from beyond the sea. 
We spoke of the themes in which intelligent Ital- 
ians are so much concerned, liberal institutions, 
and educational and material advance. It be- 
came necessary for me to let him know that I 
was a clergyman of the Anglican communion in 
America ; and immediately he launched out into 
inquiries regarding religion, the great topic of 
the thoughtful among his people, who believe in 
an historic Church and ancient institutions, yet 
wish them free from abuses and corruptions. 
He displayed an unusually clear apprehension of 
the great truths of Christianity, such as the 
Trinity, the Incarnation, the example of Christ, 
and others still, which he understood better than 
the average layman whom we meet in our own 
land, together with a perception of the truth of 
criticisms upon the Romish system that he had 
met in books and periodicals. He pushed in- 
quiry after inquiry with such a comprehensive 
knowledge of Christianity that I remarked that 
he was unusually familiar with the Bible and its 
contents. With a tone of sadness, he replied, 
"I have never seen a Bible, They were not 



THE BIBLE. 213 

permitted in Sicily until our revolution, and since 
then we have been able to purchase them no 
nearer than at Naples." I took from my pocket 
an Italian Testament, which I carried for philo- 
logical as well as religious purposes, after the ex- 
ample of Kossuth, who testified that it was the 
best book to learn any language from, and said it 
was a pleasure to show it to him. He handled it 
with reverent interest, looked at its pages, and 
gave it back. Upon being told that he must 
keep it as a souvenir of our meeting, he ardently 
asked whether I really meant it, and, upon being 
assured thereof, embraced me with characteris- 
tic effusiveness. Then he arose and went from 
group to group, arresting games and conversa- 
tions, to say : " See this Testament ! An Amer- 
ican priest has given it to me ! " It was a scene 
to be remembered, to see those moustachioed 
and uniformed men passing the little volume 
from hand to hand, as if it were some gem, look- 
ing at it as if the sight were an epoch in their 
lives, and then thanking me for so great a priv- 
ilege. We resumed our conversation, and my 
friend, a nobleman, mentioned many things con- 
cerning which he had long wished light from the 
Sacred Volume ; asking me to show him what it 
had to say upon such matters as the position of 
the ministry, the character of confession, the 
truth about the Lord's Supper, the nature of the 
family, and so forth. This discussion lasted sev- 
eral evenings, and the assembly resolved itself 



214 THE BIBLE. 

into a sort of Bible class, a new thing in a very 
old town. For instance, while speaking on one 
occasion of the question of the celibacy of the 
clergy, to which he rightly attributed many of 
the evils of the Church's condition, I asked why 
they who felt as he did, did not use in this con- 
troversy the argument from the marriage of St. 
Peter. " Peter married ! " he exclaimed, " where 
did you get such an idea ? " It was easy to 
show him where that Apostle's mother-in-law's 
illness was spoken of, and her healing narrated ; 
and he then eagerly imparted to all in the room 
the astounding piece of information that the 
Pope's alleged predecessor was not a celibate. 
This was news to them. They would not be- 
lieve it until each had read it for himself, and 
they went home that night with a new and gen- 
erative idea in their heads. 

And so our evenings passed in this strange 
Bible study, until the ship could sail that bore 
me away from where, there is reason to be- 
lieve, some seed had fallen into ground that wel- 
comed it. 

This incident, by a concrete illustration, casts 
light upon our inquiry as to the place of the 
Bible in the Church. 

It shows, in the first place, that it is not the 
transmitter of the Gospel through the ages. 
This is the popular idea : that it is the one 
means, divinely appointed thereto, of perpetuat- 
ing the facts which Christ chose His Apostles 
to proclaim for human salvation. 



THE BIBLE. 215 

But this man had received Christianity with- 
out it, and a very complete and helpful Christian- 
ity. He was as well informed, concerning what 
really gives it its value, as persons whom we 
meet in our more favored land. And does he 
not represent the great majority of Christians ? 
How many have lived and died without possess- 
ing the Sacred Volume, or who perhaps could 
not read it if they had it ! But not only is this 
true of past centuries when it was more or less 
inaccessible : many live by the Gospel now who 
do not receive it from that source. As a rule, 
people do not become Christians because the 
Bible persuades them, but only study its pages 
after they have believed. The Bible itself prob- 
ably makes few believers. Its preciousness is 
seen when faith has preceded it. 

How, then, is the Gospel transmitted ? How 
do the succeeding generations receive their Chris- 
tianity ? Just as that Italian had received his, — 
through the Church ; by the creeds, the services, 
the sacraments, the feasts and fasts, the holy 
days, of that Church ; through the Christian 
family ; through literature ; through tradition ; 
through that whole stream of life and thought 
which are found in Christendom, maintained by 
its activities, and from which our life cannot be 
separated. The Church, that body of baptized 
people of which the historical organization is the 
background even where ignored, the permanent 
and sustaining factor, however rejected, — this is 



2l6 THE BIBLE. 

that which brings the Gospel to us, first and im- 
mediately ; in our Bible countries, as much as in 
that island of Sicily where, corrupt as it was, it 
has made those whom this man represented 
familiar with the redeeming verities that are in 
Christ Jesus. 

And was not this organization or brotherhood 
intrusted with just this commission ? Was it 
not founded to preach the Gospel ? Were not 
Apostles sent to send others to spread what they 
received from Christ ? No mention is made of 
the Bible in the foundation of Christianity ; 
nothing is said about it to the Apostles ; neither 
Jesus nor they ever spoke of it as the means to 
save men. That is said to be effected through 
" the foolishness of preaching ; " that is, through 
the ministry of the Church, which came into 
being to be the transmitter of the Gospel through 
the centuries. 

And the history of this precious Book shows 
that it could have no such intention. We have 
seen that it was a collection of Apostolic writings 
composed after the Gospel had begun to be 
preached, and when the work was well under 
way. It was several hundred years before the 
Bible as we have it was in existence. How, then, 
can it be claimed to be the transmitter of Chris- 
tianity, the one divinely intended means to that 
end, when not only has the Gospel been trans- 
mitted since without it, but when it did not exist 
at the time that transmission was commanded 



THE BIBLE. 21 J 

and begun ; when another means was provided 
for that purpose ; when the Bible was in a sense 
the Church's creation, not at all its creator ? 

What, then, is the place of the Bible ? Again, 
our Sicilian helps us to decide this. He knew 
and saw that there were corruptions in the 
Christianity about him, and in the Church to 
which he owed so much, and he wished some- 
thing by which he could detect and correct them. 
This is still our constant need. The Church 
that hands down the faith, and was founded to 
that end, is composed of fallible and erring men, 
and it was to be feared that the light which it 
started out to bear would be dimmed. Tradition, 
while living on, is liable to become impure as its 
stream flows through the circumstances of time. 
Again, as we have seen, Christians would and 
should pursue the task of theological inquiry 
into the faith committed to them as facts to be 
fathomed. But the human mind is imperfect in 
its processes ; its best reasoning is precarious ; 
the deeper its speculations the larger the liabil- 
ity to stray. Therefore, for these as well as for 
other reasons, some standard would be needed 
whereby to detect deviations from the path that 
leads into the knowledge of the truth as it is in 
Jesus. This truth may be classified as the truth 
regarding the Church's foundation ; the explana- 
tion or amplification of the Saviour's work ; and 
the prophecies of the future of the world, of the 
Church, and of the individual. 



2l8 THE BIBLE. 

Now what should be the standard regarding 
such matters ? It can only be what Apostles 
taught, preserved in the changeless form of docu- 
ments. Then, if that which they had taught, 
being preserved in other ways, in tradition and 
in institutions, became mingled with error, com- 
parison with this that they had written would 
show the fact. So came about the compilation 
of the New Testament, and therewith the use of 
the Old, which these men endorsed and said that 
Christ endorsed. 

For Christians soon found out two things. 
One was that the career of the Church was to be 
longer than they had supposed, when, at first, 
they had anticipated the speedy return of the 
Lord. The other was that as the years of this 
career should succeed, and primitive days grow 
more remote, there would increase an already 
perceptible tendency to introduce foreign ele- 
ments, to draw dangerous inferences, to add un- 
warranted doctrines, joined with a lessening ca- 
pacity to detect such aberrations, owing to the 
allurements and influences of the world. So 
they desired, with yearly increasing intensity, 
such a picture of Christ and such statements of 
His work, such a setting forth of the Gospel of 
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, such utterances 
about the facts of that Gospel, as would form an 
unchanging standard of comparison. Christian- 
ity must always, as we have seen, agree with the 
conditions of its beginning. The edifice must 



THE BIBLE. 219 

always be consistent with the foundation. It 
may grow, and new features and new factors 
may be added, but there must be no violation of 
the original design. Clearly, the only way to be 
sure of this agreement is ever to refer to written 
words of such men as were charged to found the 
Church, and start it on its career with the Gospel 
received from Him on whom it is built ; for what 
is written down is not subject to adulteration, as 
that which is not must always be. 

So Christians soon began to collect all such 
writings as they could gather from the various 
churches and individuals that had received them. 
Care was exercised in accepting such alleged 
documents. Some were found earlier than oth- 
ers. Some were not received as authentic so 
soon as others. But the Gospels and the chief 
Epistles were collected and generally used after 
a hundred years or less ; the remaining books 
were accepted gradually by Christendom, and at 
length, after about five centuries, the process 
was finished, and that Volume which we have was 
completed, as the result of effort to gain as com- 
plete as possible a presentation of Christ and His 
work, in the written words of Apostolic men. 
We see in this result the undeniable evidences 
of the Providence of God superintending this hu- 
man work, and in the component parts we dis- 
cern that inspiration which can only come from 
Him. 

Now to this end, the detecting of deviations 



220 THE BIBLE. 

and corruptions in the Church's transmission of 
the faith received, it has ever served. It has 
led to every reformation that has taken place, by 
showing when it was required and what was 
needed. It was the power in the great Reforma- 
tion, and was used to lead Christians back to 
conformity with original Christianity. It ena- 
bled them to discriminate as to what should be 
retained and what rejected out of the growths 
and modifications of fifteen centuries. It is 
doing that work now. Its use is not over. 
Thinkers and students are asking whether there 
may not yet remain unwarranted elements in 
Christian life and thought ; and they are finding 
that there are things received that are not as 
harmonious with the unchanged Apostolic teach- 
ing as has been supposed by the popular reli- 
gionism of the day ; that perhaps the Reforma- 
tion, which some think completed three hundred 
years ago, was after all, in unsuspected directions, 
unfinished. Beyond this, the application of this 
standard is causing searchings of heart among 
Protestants, and showing that, in their theology 
as in their polity, they cannot rely upon their 
traditions ; that they may be involved in depar- 
tures from the Apostolic norm as truly as the 
Romanists whom they have been regarding as 
alone open to the charge of unscriptural doc- 
trine. To some of us, it is as difficult to see 
how many who claim to be Bible Christians are 
any less violating New Testament indications 



THE BIBLE. 221 

than the veriest and extremest Papist. Many a 
sect that calls itself Evangelical has yet to learn 
that its traditions are not more sure than the 
papal, being only what its people have received 
from their fathers ; not drawn from the Bible, as 
they claim, but injected into it : the interpreta- 
tions of prejudgment. 

But this position of the Bible, as the divinely 
given norm to keep the Church true in the ut- 
terance of its message, has not been sufficiently 
remembered, and several serious consequences 
have resulted thence. 

One is that it has been so identified with 
Christianity that belief in it has been made syn- 
onymous with belief in Christ. It has been put 
in His place as the object of faith. It has come 
between the soul and Him, as really, though not 
as disastrously, perhaps, as sacerdotalism has 
ever done. But, whatever value this Volume 
may have, whatever our estimate of it, our rela- 
tion to it must not in any degree supplant our 
relationship to our Lord. Christianity is trust 
in Him, living discipleship of Him ; and the only 
value of anything else can be that it helps us 
in that discipleship. To believe in the Bible's 
every word does not make us believers in the 
Gospel. Never to see it, and so not to believe 
a word of it because unknown, or not to believe 
this or that part of its narrations, does not nec- 
essarily render us unbelievers in Jesus Christ. 

Again, this abuse of the Bible, as practically 



222 THE BIBLE. 

identifying belief in it with belief in Christ, has, 
it is to be feared, stood in the way of many a 
conversion to Christ. Because of misinforma- 
tion, or the influences of unwise teachers, some 
have accepted this identification as true ; and, 
not being able to accept this or that thing in its 
pages, this or that book even, as what they think 
divine, they have given up their belief in it, and 
then their Christianity. They could be Chris- 
tians, but are not able to agree with their de- 
nomination or their Church about this Volume. 
Others have been turned away by the very idea 
that faith is to rest upon a book at all, to which 
they had thought Christianity committed ; for 
this is evidently not the meaning of faith, to an 
intelligently religious man. 

Again, this identification of Christianity with 
this precious book has led assailants to think 
that, in destroying its credibility by controverting 
some of its contents, they overthrow the faith it- 
self. This is the position of the ordinary infidel 
orator. He shouts Victory ! when he has made 
some audience believe that he has destroyed the 
trustworthiness of the Bible by an attack upon 
some of its parts. And the trouble is that many 
Christians accept the issue. They cannot help 
it, since, not believing in any other pillar and 
ground of the faith, any argument against the 
Bible is one against all belief in Christ. But 
this is all a mistake. Many Christians, like my 
Sicilian friend, never saw a Bible, and we must 



THE BIBLE. 223 

not make Christianity stand or fall with it. It 
not only is a false position, it makes the defense 
of our faith difficult. We can defend that Vol- 
ume, we are not afraid to meet that issue, but 
we must not admit that reasons for belief in 
Christ are dependent upon and identical with our 
ability to conduct so learned and so intricate an 
argument as that for a collection of many docu- 
ments of ancient times. Nor must we admit 
that, when some eloquent caviler has overthrown 
the literal accuracy of some incident in the Old 
Testament, or shown that Jael was wrong in kill- 
ing Sisera, or that perhaps St. Peter did not 
write the second epistle that bears his name, or 
that St. John did not write his Gospel, — that 
then he had destroyed all reasons for believing in 
the Gospel of the Son of God, preached in sac- 
rament and holy season, in ordinances and insti- 
tutions coming to us by a different and an in- 
dependent channel. 

Another consequence of imagining that the 
Bible is the sole container and intended trans- 
mitter of Christianitv is, that we are not to hold 
or believe anything not therein found, a position 
touched upon in another lecture. If it were 
such, and if that position had such a basis, the 
results would be very inconvenient. It would 
leave us, as we have seen, without explicit war- 
rant for infant baptism, or Sundav observance, or 
admission of women to either Sacrament, and 
other customs. But, when we consider that 



224 THE BIBLE. 

the New Testament consists of books and let- 
ters written for special purposes to certain Chris- 
tians, we see that, after all, it may be possible 
that there were Apostolic practices and original 
teachings or generally known principles, which 
did not happen to be referred to in an occa- 
sional correspondence. And when we take the 
evidently true position, that the function of the 
Bible is, not to transmit the Gospel, but as a 
norm to regulate its transmission by the Church, 
because composed of written utterances of the 
Church's founders, together with ancient docu- 
ments which they endorse as sacred and inspired, 
then we are not wholly dependent upon the letter 
of its contents. 

This is the position taken by the German and 
the English Reformations, as distinct from the 
Calvinistic ; which latter, not indeed in practice, 
yet in theory, confines Christianity to Bible lim- 
itations. The former is not only clearly the true 
one, but it is alone the position that can meet 
many objectors, and spare us many difficulties in 
our defense of essential Christianity. For when 
we consider that the Bible is not Christ, and be- 
lief in the Bible is not identical with belief in 
Christ, we need not feel anxious as to assaults 
upon His faith that are only based upon criti- 
cism of its pages. We can say to the ordinary 
assailant, Why do you attack our handbook ? 
What has that to do with our faith ? There are 
plenty of Christians who know nothing of it, in 



THE BIBLE. 225 

other lands and in our own, whose faith in the 
Gospel rests on another basis. Now deal with 
that faith. We give you all you ask, for the 
sake of argument, and tell you that we believe 
in the Gospel because it reaches us through the 
preaching, the sacraments, the institutions, the 
life, the services, the creeds of the Church ; a con- 
tinuous stream of holy life ; the tradition passed 
on through the centuries from saint to saint, and 
minister to minister. What have you to say to 
that ? Your task has only begun, you have done 
nothing, until you give us reasons for not believ- 
ing in this Gospel which thus reaches us. De- 
stroy that Book if you will and can, but still tell 
us why we should not rest upon this Christ, 
whose story, and whose Good News, is no more 
dependent upon it than the story of a Washing- 
ton is dependent upon some biography of him. 
We prize that Volume, we will defend it, but 
your disbelief in its alleged character, or your 
assaults on it, do not touch the faith in Christ 
which began before it existed, and has blessed 
many without it ever since. 

And so we see the value of that divinely given 
Book, as we hold it. It preserves in undimmed 
clearness the picture of that Christ who lives in 
the Church, who is its foundation and its theme. 
It preserves, in changeless form, utterances of 
inspired men who gave to the Church the story 
of its Lord, the explanation of His work, the 
prophecies of its future, the assurances of His 



226 THE BIBLE. 

triumph, and the hope of a glorious immortality 
for His people. Therefore it is precious beyond 
all other books conceivable. It is the standard, 
the criterion by which the Church is ever to try 
its fidelity to its mission. It is the test which de- 
tects adulteration in the food man feeds on. Or, 
rather, it is the compass which detects and cor- 
rects the deviations of the ship, the ark of the 
Church, in which we voyage towards our rest ; 
that without which men in their ignorance 
might and would be borne far astray ere they 
reached the goal of their voyage. It is the book 
that alone can keep true the melody of that mes- 
sage which the people of God are to proclaim in 
this world, — the handbook on earth for those 
whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of 
Life. This is well expressed in the ancient seal 
of Harvard. Across an open Bible is written 
the word "Veritas." To the credit of the found- 
ers of that honored institution, this ever reminds 
its members that, amid all activity of thought 
and all progress of learning, however sound, the 
only truth that is free from liability to human 
error, unmixed with the results of human limita- 
tions, is that regarding Jesus Christ, the Truth 
Incarnate, which is found in that Volume where 
we have it in the written words of Apostolic 
men. 

One evening, as I walked to my hotel after 
one of my Sicilian Vespers, I tarried awhile in 
the moonlight by the fountain of Arethusa. It 



THE BIBLE. 227 

welled up murmuringly under the waving palms, 
surrounded by the tufted papyri that tell of the 
sojourn of the Saracen in this often conquered 
and reconquered island. 

When the Greek colonists first came to settle 
here, back in the dawn of history, they made 
their home about this crystal spring. But as it 
rises on a little island, separate from the main- 
land of Sicily, the present though not the an- 
cient limits of the town of Syracuse, they won- 
dered whence could come this fresh and limpid 
water, about which the salt waves beat so close 
at hand. In their love of home, and in their 
fondness for poetic fancy, these colonists dwelt 
upon the mystery, until it came to be believed 
that .this fountain had flowed beneath the sea 
from distant Hellas, and that in it they drank of 
water fed by the rains and dews of Elis, that 
home whence the fathers had come forth, and 
where Grecian life was truer, purer than ever it 
could be elsewhere, though fair were the skies 
and rich the fields of Sicily. 

And so, it seemed to me, is it with these Scrip- 
tures of which we had been speaking, and which 
my friend had welcomed. As the Church wan- 
ders on through the ages, and spreads through 
distant lands, ever more remote from its birth- 
place, its members, however favored their abodes 
or great their progress, wish to keep in touch 
with the days and the life of its origin, ever be 
nurtured by the dews of its birth. They know 



228 THE BIBLE. 

that there is the ideal of Christian living and 
thinking, which, though simpler than their own 
may be, must yet never be departed from, in the 
changes that time may bring, or the larger light 
that experience and thought may give. This 
ideal is preserved in the Bible, which, like that 
mysterious fountain, has come beneath the sea of 
time, unaffected by the billows of history, un- 
changed since it issued from the scenes of the 
home whence we came out. In it can we be re- 
freshed by draughts that have the invigorating 
power of sources that rose on the mount where 
Apostles sojourned with the now unseen Lord. 
By it can the Church be kept from error in its 
task of reproducing, upon every shore and in 
every age, the spirit of the days of its youth. 

Therefore nothing can take its place. Before 
it, all must bow in reverence. In conflict with 
it, no voice, no authority is valid. While we 
hear the Church, the commissioned preacher of 
the Everlasting Gospel, yet we must, like the 
Bereans of old, even in presence of its utterances, 
exercise our privilege to search the Scriptures to 
see whether those things are so. 



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